“It’s going to take everything and more for us”- Lewis Hamilton on the competition against Red Bull, as the competition is now intense.
Red Bull and Mercedes had a brutal battle in the Bahrain International circuit; for now, Mercedes managed to win the first round of this contest, but Lewis Hamilton states that more is needed by his team to beat Red Bull.
Since the pre-season testing, Hamilton has been wary of Red Bull’s this year’s strength and claimed them the favourites for the first race of the season.
Even during the race, Red Bull was more under control, but the final twists cost Red Bull an upper hand before the next race in Imola, but Hamilton is aware that fate will not always be on their side. Hence, he demands more output.
“What a difficult race that was,” said Hamilton. “Definitely stopping early; we knew was going to be difficult, but we had to cover Max. Max is really doing well at the moment,” he added.
“So it’s going to take everything and more for us to put in performances like this. We love the challenge; I love the challenge; I still love what I do.”
Thankful to the men and women in the factory
Despite Verstappen hounding on Hamilton for the most part of the race, a minor mistake by Hamilton kept Verstappen behind, and for that, the Briton has thanked his team for the work on the car.
“They’ve had amazing performance all weekend, so it was going to take something pretty special,” he said. “We stopped for that last stint and trying to find the right balance between not pushing too much and having tyres at the end of the race was typical, and Max was all over me right at the end but just about managed to hold him off.”
“It was one of the hardest races I’ve had for a while, so I’m really grateful for it and massively thankful to the men and women back at the factory and here also for continuously pushing the boundaries and never giving up even if we do feel we’re behind.
“It was so hard in the car today. But what a great event, and this is an excellent start for us.”
