Hamilton targets improvements amid ‘not perfect' 2019

Formula 1 championship leader Lewis Hamilton wants his performances in the second half of the 2019 season to be “even stronger” than before.

Hamilton heads Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas by 62 points in the drivers’ standings after winning eight of the opening 12 rounds of the season. Despite his impressive form, which has seen him make his best-ever start to an F1 season, the Briton insists there have still been flaws to address.

While Hamilton has excelled on race-days, he has only managed to secure four pole positions so far this year, the same tally as Bottas, who has proven to be more of a match for F1’s all-time pole record holder this year.

“What’s really great in this team is that I don’t think we’re ever complacent,” Hamilton said.

“And even if we sometimes are it nips us in the butt and we pull back. But the majority of the time we don’t get complacent, we always arrive with the same mentality, we’ve had all this success yet everyone continues to work just as hard, and no-one is better than the other, and we all lift each other up.

“These eight wins in the first half of the season is obviously exceptional. If anyone ever talks down upon our success you’ve got to remember how those who have had success will know how hard it is to achieve it even if you do have performance.

“You still got to arrive and deliver weekend in, weekend out, there’s still two drivers per team, so actual delivery is paramount.

“Obviously Ferrari have had a good package, have come with a certain philosophy this year that doesn’t work everywhere, Red Bull looks like, I don’t know what changes they’ve done to the car but they seem to really have turned it around,” he added.

“The engine’s obviously made a pretty big step for them as well which is great, but I look at those races and say eight out of 12, there’s still some missing, so how did we miss those ones, how were we not perfect on those weekends.

“We’ve also had races where we were fortunate, where Ferrari were quicker, but through driver, sometimes team error, sometimes driver error which has put them in a position, like Baku or Bahrain, where they had the car failure else they were the ones.

“It just shows you how on the edge we all are and you can’t take anything for granted so you’ve just got to keep working at it.

“I truly believe this second half of the season could be much much harder for us in the sense that we’ll continue to have this battle.

“We’ve obviously got a package, we’ve just got to continue to arrive and deliver like we have here [in Hungary]. I can tell you we’re not perfect, by far, we’ve still got areas where we will continue to improve and I’m looking forward to that journey.”

Speaking ahead of the summer break, Hamilton explained how he planned to recover from his recent bout of illness and ensure he is operating at 100 percent for the second half of the season.

“I plan this break that I have really focused on recovery, real recovery, bit of a change in my normal break, and really really just try and make sure I come back,” he said.

“I’ve just asked my guys, I want everyone to send me an email, just be complete straight the things we can improve on, I want the second half to be even stronger than the first half.

“I’ve been fit all year but I’ve got to make sure I get my energy back, also going to be spending a lot of time with family.

“I’m a bit of a night owl, I like staying up late, because I don’t really sleep a huge amount, so I’ll try and focus on shifting that and waking up early and seeing the sunrise wherever I am

“I might try meditation, just a few different things, healthier lifestyle, and my close good friends around me will be doing the same. A lot more reading, I’m excited about it.”