Lewis Hamilton admits to being even more motivated following death of mentor Aki Hintsa.

The mood at today's press conference took a sombre turn when Lewis Hamilton was asked about the death of Dr Aki Hintsa, the human performance guru who for many years had been team doctor at McLaren.

The Briton's mood clearly changed, and for a few moments it was clear the Mercedes driver was struggling to maintain his composure.

"The last week, particularly, was definitely a difficult week," he finally said, breaking the silence. "Last week definitely wasn't the best week of sleeping, for sure.

"I'd known Aki since 2004 I think it was, so I'd known Aki quite a long, long time, very close with him and his family and I was very, very fortunate to have been able to be there with him and his family in the last days and actually get to see him on the last day of his...

"On the Monday after Brazil, I got to see him and spend time with him and we played music, got to see him smile, got to see the amazing man he was.

"You know, proud to have known someone like that and have someone like that in your life, who had been hugely and incredibly helpful in my time.

"He was very instrumental in me getting that seat at McLaren in Formula One as he'd built a really strong relationship with Ron and Ron was kind of of a mind to say that if Aki says you're ready then I believe you're ready, so Aki would take me through all these tests and he would look at me deeply in my eyes and like 'yeah, you're ready, I can tell.'

"So I have all these great memories with him and for sure it's... we don't know why these things are sent to... such wonderful people as well...

"You hear about prisoners who have done the worst things who die happily in their sleep and then you hear about someone who is almost a saint like Aki, who would help... who would go to Ethiopia and help children and has helped so many people and affected everyone that he had met in a positive light.

"To have finished his life so early was definitely tough to see but coming here this weekend, whilst I have that fighting spirit in my heart from the last races I've done, I come here with almost double the power in the sense that I feel that I want to win this race more so for him.

"We were texting every single race through his battle and particularly the last race on Sunday. Yeah, so coming here this weekend, whilst it's an emotional time, I'm here to try and do him proud, do well for him as he had helped prepare and the belief he had in me."

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