Hamilton wants Mercedes to use final three F1 rounds as ‘test races’ for 2021

Lewis Hamilton remains motivated to close out the 2020 Formula 1 season by winning the remaining three rounds, which he wants Mercedes to use as “test races” to take further learnings into next year. 

Both titles have been settled after Mercedes claimed a seventh consecutive constructors’ world championship at Imola, before Hamilton clinched a record-equalling seventh world title to move level with Michael Schumacher last time out at the Turkish Grand Prix. 

While the final three races of the season could be viewed as something of a damp squib with little for Mercedes to play for, Hamilton remains determined not to take his foot off the gas as he attempts to join Sebastian Vettel and Schumacher on achieving the most wins across a single season with 13 victories - a record the Briton can match if he prevails at each remaining event. 

“That’s what we exist to do. Why else would we be here?” Hamilton - who topped opening practice in Bahrain - said of his aim to triumph at the final three rounds in the Middle East. 

"That’s what we all work towards, that’s what every single person that’s back at the factories works towards in the year, we still have work to do, we still have incremental improvements to make, just every day and every opportunity we get to be on track and in the race weekend we are still challenged and learning and developing. 

"It’s a consistent journey of trying to improve and it’s not an easy thing to do when you’ve had the success that we’ve had, but we all love that challenge and I love how it unifies us. It brings us all together to fight for that common goal and we’re seeing even today the debates that we have in engineering, we’re constantly evolving how we debate and how we work as a team. I enjoy that. 

“Otherwise it’s just in my DNA, that’s how I’m wired,” he added. “I love that challenge of coming to three races where the pressure is different but the focus now - yes it’s on getting the best performances out of these weekends but it’s how can we extract a little bit more, how can we learn more from these weekends, almost use them as test races, so that we can apply what we learn in these three particularly, and what we’ve learned this year, into next year’s car.” 

Asked if he would like to get experimental with different set-ups on his Mercedes W11 in Bahrain, Hamilton jokingly replied: “I would like to do that – but our engineers don't like doing too much experimenting in that respect...”