Lewis Hamilton: Being so dominant over Ferrari isn't as fun

Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton: Being so dominant over Ferrari isn't as fun

He wants more competition.

Martin Macdonald

Tuesday 14 May 2019 11:43 Updated: 14:41

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Lewis Hamilton admits that Mercedes currently being so dominant over Ferrari in the constructor’s championship isn’t as much “fun” as competing against a team who is also performing at their best, while saying that the state of the current F1 product isn’t the fault of the Silver Arrows.

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With Hamilton winning the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday and Valtteri Bottas finishing in second, they secured five 1-2 finishes in a row from the start of the 2019 season, equalling the record.

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The highlight of Ferrari’s race, meanwhile, was more miscommunication over team orders between Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc, and even though the German secured third, he was never close to the two Mercedes drivers.

With the Scuderia failing to live up to their promising pre-season pace, the championship is becoming a procession, and Hamilton has lamented the lack of competition.

“It’s not as much fun, for sure as when you’re competing against another team,” the Brit said.

“That’s what Formula 1 is about. That’s the exciting part, when you arrive and you’re competing against one or two other teams who are also bringing their A-game.

“Naturally in those teams, that’s another two drivers.

“That puts another spanner in the works and often when the cars are close, there’s strengths and weaknesses of either team, and how you play those and benefit from those, it’s awesome.

“But when that’s not there it’s definitely not as exciting from a competition point of view.

“Racing within a team, it’s not really how Formula 1 should be in my opinion. But it is how it is right now and it has been those ways in the past as well.”

After yet another routine win for Mercedes, the 2019 title race is at risk of being over before even getting going, but Hamilton says that is not the fault of his team, who are simply doing their job by performing so well.

“People watching might be unhappy with the gap we have to the Ferraris. Of course we want to be as quick as we can be, we don’t know why the others have fallen off a little bit,” he continued.

“It’s not our fault. It’s not these guys’ (his team-mates) fault that they are really great at their job.”

After the opening five races, Ferrari are 96 points adrift of Mercedes in the constructor’s championship.