Hamilton: F1 title fight is still on despite lead

Lewis Hamilton doesn’t believe the 2019 Formula 1 world title battle isn’t over yet despite his healthy points gap over team-mate Valtteri Bottas.

The reigning F1 world champion is enduring his longest winless stretch since the start of the 2018 campaign, when he failed to win any of the opening three races that year, but has still been able to open up his advantage in the drivers’ standings to 65 points since the summer break.

But with Ferrari storming to victory for the past three consecutive races, Hamilton is wary of threats until he has mathematically wrapped up the F1 world title given a maximum of 156 points can still be scored this season.

“It’s got tighter and tighter as the season has gone on, we’ve learnt from that, but at the same time we’ve just got to be doing a better job,” Hamilton said. “We did such a great job in the beginning of the year that we’ve got this gap, but that gap could easily go. I’m under no illusions about that, about my gap in the championship. It’s not won yet.

“We’ve got to pull our socks up basically. We can squeeze more out of this car and this team, individually, together we can do better.

“We win and lose as a team so we all feel not great right now and I think it’s a good thing because if there’s anyone in the team feeling relaxed right now they need talking to.”

With an uncertain upgrade plan for the remainder of the 2019 F1 season, as all teams begin to switch focus to next year’s efforts, Hamilton is already bracing for further races where Mercedes may struggle against the resurgent Ferrari and Red Bull teams.

“Upgrades are something that takes months and months. You can’t just decide now that we want an upgrade next week, it’s months and months of planning,” Hamilton said. “I’m sure we do have upgrades coming at some stage, I don’t know when, I don’t think it’s the next one.

“I don’t know how much is coming over the last races that we have but these next few races are going to be tough.”