Despite his retirement from last Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix, where badly worn rear tyres caused him to slide into a gravel trap as he came into the pit lane at the Shanghai circuit, the 22-year-old Briton still believes he remains the favourite to win the world championship from his current position with 107 points after 16 races, four ...
Lewis Hamilton will stretch himself to the absolute limit to clinch the world championship, not only with his driving performance at the wheel of his McLaren, but also when it comes to his physical preparation for the gruelling Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos next Sunday.
Despite his retirement from last Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix, where badly worn rear tyres caused him to slide into a gravel trap as he came into the pit lane at the Shanghai circuit, the 22-year-old Briton still believes he remains the favourite to win the world championship from his current position with 107 points after 16 races, four ahead of his team-mate Fernando Alonso and seven in front of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen.
“Well, I feel quite good after last weekend, but as soon as I returned from China it was straight back to training,” he said. “The conditions will be quite hot so we will have to change the training a bit as well as concentrating on building up the right side of my neck as it is an anti-clockwise circuit. I will probably look at some onboard footage of last year, then I will go down to the workshop to talk to my engineer and go over what we learned in the last race. There is always an improvement to be made.”
His confidence is clearly high. “I think I'm capable of doing it, even if some other drivers might be slightly on the back foot and struggling after the weekend I've just had,” he said. “But I've taken a negative and turned it into a positive. I can bounce back.”
Interestingly, Hamilton has not used the sophisticated multimillion-dollar McLaren simulator to prepare for the bumpy and rutted Interlagos track. “We use that mainly for [car] developments,” he said, “but I've been practising on my PlayStation. I think we have to try and win the race, but at least part of our mind has to be focused on the race result. I will aim to finish on the podium but we can't take any risks.”
Hamilton acknowledges that his championship rival Raikkonen may benefit from tactical assistance from his Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa, on his home ground, although he suggests that last year's winner will be more concerned with repeating that success rather than helping his team-mate. “I think Felipe will have plenty on his mind,” he said.
Hamilton is considering a visit to his hero Ayrton Senna's grave after the race. A trip to the three-times world champion's grave at the Morumbi cemetery on the outskirts of Sao Paulo is “definitely something I'd like to do.”
