Lewis Hamilton says he doesn’t feel any pressure and hopes Mercedes can perform well, as Max Verstappen is taking it step-by-step too.
Mercedes’ Hamilton says he doesn’t feel pressure fighting for his eighth F1 title against Red Bull’s Verstappen, as the tussle heads into the fag end of the season with only six races remaining. The gap too sits at six points where the Dutchman leads.
Until the summer break, Red Bull did pretty well to take the fight to Mercedes, but lost crucial points at crucial juncture. Post it, the German outfit has come out in a better shape, although it could be track specific as Hamilton points out to be.
However, he is hoping that they can carry the momentum in the last six races, which is kind of unknown with the next three races not featuring on the 2020 calendar. Post that, Qatar and Saudi Arabia is brand new event, while Abu Dhabi has track changes.
“I don’t feel any pressure, I am very chilled,” said Hamilton to written media. “I don’t like losing points but that’s the way it is, I did everything I could in Turkey. We haven’t upped anything to the car, so I don’t really know why our performance has been better. I think the two tracks that we have driven maybe suited us a little bit more,.
“But in general the car has been feeling good. It felt good in Turkey and moving forward, hopefully we can continue to perform like Valtteri in Turkey, in next few races, it will be good for the team and if the car continues to behave it has like in Turkey, that will be good for us,” summed up Hamilton, as Verstappen seemed a bit chilled out too.
The Dutchman concedes that Mercedes were better in Turkey, but he hopes some of the upcoming tracks help Red Bull more. Interestingly, Verstappen adds that they only do this much and if he falls short, it wouldn’t change his world.
“They were definitely quicker in Turkey and we just didn’t get it together and also in the wet they seemed to have a bit of the edge as well,” said Verstappen. “So we’ll have to analyse of course why we weren’t that competitive and I definitely do think they probably stepped it up a bit more so yeah, even with the points, it’s not going to be easy.
“I think I even said it before we even started the weekend, so far we’ve had a really good year so it’s not going to change the world for me if we finish first or second at the end of the day, but I’m always going to give my best and we’ll see again in Austin how it’s going to go. We won’t give up, we’ll always try to do the best we can and hopefully, of course, at the end of the championship it’s going to be enough but if it isn’t I’m not going to sleep less,” summed up Verstappen.
Here’s Toto Wolff and Lewis Hamilton regarding communication
Here’s Toto Wolff on reliability and performance
Here’s Sergio Perez in his show run
Here’s Christian Horner on straightline speed of Mercedes
