Despite a below-par Canadian Grand Prix weekend, Lewis Hamilton is adamant that he will not negative thoughts cloud his mission to win his fifth Formula 1 World Championship this year, as he contemplated his weekend in Montreal
Fifth place is not where Hamilton fancies finishing races, but that was his plight on a weekend in which he never showed his A-game.
Coupled to that, Mercedes were sorely missing the extra horsepower that their second version 2018 power units were expected to give them at the high-speed Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
The updated Mercedes engine packages did not make the trip due to “quality issues” and as a consequence, the Silver Arrows were simply lacking firepower.
In the race, it was more frustration for Hamilton who feared throughout that an overheating problem would force him to retire. He made it to the end but Ferrari title rival and race winner Sebastian Vettel was well up the road.
Before departing Montreal, Hamilton was asked if he felt the Mercedes was no longer a title winning car, to which he replied, “I don’t let that get into my mind. That would be the first sign of weakness and my mind is not weak. I’m still here to win and still believe that we can.”
“I’ve got complete confidence in my guys and I’m putting that energy towards them. You imagine in tennis if you look across the net and you think ‘I might lose this’, you’ve already lost.”
“It doesn’t matter where I start on the grid, I don’t look at any driver and say ‘I might lose to that person’. I think ‘How can I beat them? How can I be better?’ I am going to keep doing that.”
“I’m sure the next couple of days it will get more and more painful because ultimately it was a poor weekend, but it could be a lot worse.”
“I could have had a DNF and lost 25 points. However, in the two races we have lost 18 points so we have definitely fallen behind a little bit in that respect.”
As a result, Hamilton heads to round eight in France trailing Vettel in the championship standings by one point. He arrived in Canada with a 14 points advantage.
“I think we’ve got potential in this car and when you guys are writing your stories, I think last year there was ‘oh, Mercedes have the best car’ and all those different things, but ultimately I think we did the better job.”
“You probably shouldn’t be writing that right now because we’re not always outperforming the others, but also it’s very close.”
“The Red Bulls are every now and then are in the mix, Ferrari have been, I would say, the most consistent, but there are a lot of races to come.”
“These engines have to go a long way, that’s going to make things happen and that’s why I’m really grateful for this one,” added Hamilton.