“I never fully understood”- Lewis Hamilton now realizes significance of Michael Schumacher in F1 team

“I never fully understood”- Lewis Hamilton now realizes the importance of Michael Schumacher in building the supercars in his F1 teams.

Lewis Hamilton after winning 7 Championship titles have realized the importance of a marquee driver in building cars worthy of contesting the championships.

He remarked that earlier he never understood the role played by his predecessor at Mercedes- Michael Schumacher’s role in working with the management for a car suited to him and now doesn’t expects same from the rookie drivers.

“In terms of helping develop the car, that’s something that I think that drivers – and as I’m approaching where Michael was – I never fully understood,” said Hamilton to the Motorsport.

“It’s difficult for someone starting in F1, for young drivers, it’s hard for them to fully understand what it is that Michael did, what I am doing in this team.

“They’ll just see that we have a good car, just see that Michael had a good car, but now I’m here I understand what Michael did with the team, or perhaps what he might have done with this team. I’m sure it’s similar to what I’ve had to do.

“You know, you have to be the rudder. You have this powerful group of intelligent, impassioned people and of course, you have the head of the team which is the main rudder.

“But in terms of development, how to get the car to go further and work with the characteristics of the driver, that’s my job and I’d say I’m definitely very, very proud of that. Unfortunately, people don’t get to see all that in the background.”

This campaign is a step above in career

In the detailed interview given by Hamilton, the Brit driver claimed that this campaign by him was a step above in terms of performances and dominance.

“It definitely feels like the most all-rounded highest level I’ve been at, yeah,” he said. “It’s a natural progression, naturally. You can’t always get it right.

“This year, being as we’ve also had Covid, we’ve had more time to focus on areas of weakness and I would say last year the racing was strong, qualifying wasn’t so great and I came into this season trying to make sure I kept the strengths but worked on the weaknesses.

“But in improving in qualifying I have managed to improve the racing, which was a bit of a surprise. I was not expecting that.” he further said.

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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