Photo: Ferrari
Hamilton not giving up on title fight this year
Lewis Hamilton believes Ferrari still has a chance to fight for the Formula 1 world championship, with the seven-time world champion refusing to rule out a late title challenge ahead of this weekend's Barcelona Catalunya Grand Prix.
The Briton arrives in Barcelona in strong form after securing second place in Monaco, matching his best Grand Prix finish for Ferrari. It was also his third podium in the last five races, a major improvement compared to his first season with the team.
Hamilton admitted he always expected Ferrari's progress to take time and feels the hard work behind the scenes is now paying off.
"I knew we would get to this point at some point. I knew that last year was a building year and I knew that if we acted on the things that I'd asked for we would eventually get to where we're going," Hamilton said, as quoted by F1.com.
"We still have work to do, we're still not there just yet but the things that I was asking for last year, I've got a car that I've had input into, helped develop, adding things to new ways that we work together. Fred (Vasseur) has been great in collaborating with me and it feels great to be part of that and see progress," the British driver added.
Hamilton currently sits second in the drivers' standings, 66 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli and narrowly ahead of former Mercedes team-mate George Russell.
While he accepts Ferrari may struggle to match Mercedes in certain areas, particularly in straight-line performance, Hamilton believes the team's development race could still make the difference over the remainder of the season.
"In terms of the title, I think we can still out-do people in terms of how we develop the carOur car is very good, the downforce package that we have is really good. We're going to have to double up, make sure that we're always one step ahead of everyone in terms of advancing so we can go through the corners quicker and catch up the deficit we may lose down the straights," Hamilton admitted and concluded:
"We can improve efficiency, so we can maybe improve on drag to try and close that gap in speed. And there's lot of different things happening in these different tracks, so never say never and we're just going to keep pushing and give it absolutely everything."
