Hamilton after DNF for Bottas: "It wasn’t a concern for me"
General
- GPblog.com
Valtteri Bottas registered a DNF in Qatar, but that did not cause Lewis Hamilton to have doubts about his own race. The Mercedes driver said this after the race in the FIA press conference. The seven times world champion thanks the employees of the German racing team for making his victory possible.
Hamilton says he was not nervous when he heard it was the end of teammate Bottas. "No. I mean, I wasn’t… I was managing quite well, I wasn't on any of the kerbs, so it wasn’t a concern for me. I assumed they were coming from people running on the kerbs but I was never near any of them, that wasn’t the issue."
The British driver is particularly "very grateful" to his team. "Big thank you to all the guys, the men and women back at the factories who have been pushing so much over this… particularly this second half of the season, to really try to bridge the gap, to really try and bridge the gap to our competitors. It’s a great feeling but there’s no time to celebrate, there’s no time to rest. We keep our head down and we keep chasing." Hamilton still believes Red Bull have the better car.
Hamilton is physically on top of his game
Hamilton needs to score nine more points than Verstappen at the Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi GPs to secure his eighth Formula 1 title. How confident is he? "As I said, I feel great. I feel in the best shape physically that I’ve been in all year. So just feel… obviously at the beginning, not particularly that well, so yeah, I feel great, the car is feeling better than ever, and I feel positive going into these next couple of races. I think they should be quite good for our car, so I'm looking forward to that battle."