Lewis Hamilton taking nothing for granted in F1 title race

Lewis Hamilton

Hamilton taking nothing for granted in F1 title race

Mercedes will not become sloppy.

Martin Macdonald

Sunday 11 August 2019 14:30 Updated: 15:20

Lewis Hamilton insists that Mercedes will not become complacent in the 2019 championship, despite holding a healthy lead over Ferrari and Red Bull halfway through the campaign.

The Brit has won eight out of the 12 races so far, with Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen winning a couple each also. The points won by Hamilton and Bottas have opened up a 150-point lead over Ferrari in the constructor rankings.

He says the Silver Arrows can’t afford to become complacent, however, as they have been given a few strokes of luck in the first half of the season.

I look at those races and 8 out of 12, there's still some missing," he told Autosport

"So how did we miss those? How were we not perfect on those weekends?

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"We've also had races where we were quite fortunate, Ferrari were quicker but through sometimes team error and sometimes driver error, it's put them in the position of not winning.

"Like Baku or Bahrain, where they had the car failure and otherwise would have won. It just shows you how on the edge we all are, and you can't take anything for granted."

The five-time world champion believes the main reason that Mercedes will not become complacent is that he expects a tougher second half of the campaign, with Ferrari looking to improve and Red Bull impressing with their developing Honda engines.

"This second half of the season could be much, much harder in the sense we'll continue to have this battle,” he added.

"We've obviously got a package, we just have to continue to arrive and deliver like we have. I can tell you we're not perfect, by far. We've still got areas we will continue to improve.

“You've still got to arrive and deliver, week-in week-out.

"Ferrari has had a good package, obviously come with a certain [aerodynamic] philosophy this year that doesn't work everywhere.

"Red Bull, I don't know what changes they've done to the car, but they seem to have really been able to turn it round and the engine's made a big step for them which is great."