Austin (Texas), Oct 19 (IANS) Lewis Hamilton said here that the Mercedes team remains as focused as ever on winning races and will not relax even though he has virtually wrapped up a fifth Formula One driver’s title.
“It just feels like another weekend, another race weekend that we have. And we want to win. So it’s a simple goal for us. We just arrived to try to do the same thing,” the 33-year-old Hamilton said at a press conference here on Thursday ahead of Sunday’s United States Grand Prix.
“The weather’s up and down, and our goal is really just try and perform as we have in previous races. We’re not thinking of it in any other way,” he added.
Hamilton (331 points) has a 67-point lead over his nearest rival, German Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel, with just four races remaining in the 21-race F1 season, reports Efe news agency.
The British Mercedes driver will defend his title if he comes in first and Vettel finishes third or worse in Sunday’s race at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, but he can also wrap up the championship under several other scenarios.
Hamilton, winner of F1 titles in 2008, 2014, 2015 and 2017 (the first with McLaren and the latter three with Mercedes), would tie late Argentine racing legend Juan Manuel Fangio for second place on the all-time F1 drivers’ championship list by wrapping up a fifth world title.
He could then set his sights on the record held by German great Michael Schumacher, who won seven F1 drivers’ titles between 1994 and 2004.
–IANS
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