25/08/2023
NEWS STORY
Finishing runner-up is a "huge" achievement says Lewis Hamilton, as teammate George Russell denies 2023 season has been failure.
The Briton, who has yet to stand atop the podium since Jeddah 2021, was hoping to get his title-winning aspirations back on track this season after struggling last year.
Little by little Mercedes has begun to recover, it's softy, softly approach appearing to pay better results over the course of time than the sudden improvements witnessed at Aston Martin and more recently McLaren.
Though a win appears some way off, far less a title challenge, the seven-time world champion insists his team should be proud of its achievement.
"I think it's a huge achievement," he said, "and I think it's something that I feel has been a little bit overlooked, if I'm really honest.
"More focusing I guess, only because we want to win, there hasn't I would say been the most positive narrative. But I'm really proud of the team, the progress and the steps we have taken with the car, from feeling like an almost identical car to last year, to making all the changes that we have.
"There are some small adjustments we are making moving forwards over these next couple of races," he added. "We have some small bits added to the car this weekend, every point of downforce, every little bit that we had makes a difference.
"I'm super grateful to everyone back at the factory for continuing to push, even through the hard times, and just staying focused knowing that we will, with the belief, that we will get there at some point.
"Just to keep up the good work. For us to be second in the constructors' championship, considering how others have started this year, like how McLaren are doing with their big turnaround, Aston who came out of the blocks really great, I think it's pretty amazing, and that's down to all these amazing people back at the factory, and the crew that we have here.
"Also, the drivers aren't doing a bad job," he laughed. "And you know, my goal is to try and make sure the team keep that second place in the championship, and try and hunt down second in the drivers' championship, that is my goal."
Meanwhile, teammate George Russell prefers to look at the positives, insisting that 2023 hasn't been a failure.
"I feel like as a team we've gone from strength to strength this season," he said. "Obviously there was a lot of expectation upon us going into the season and perhaps that's why people are calling our season a bit of a failure.
"Of course, it's far from where we want it to be," he admitted, "because we want to be fighting for championships, but to call P2 in the championship, 50 points ahead of P3 at the moment, a failure is far from reality.
"We know we've got a lot to improve. We've made really good progress and I think going into the second half of the season, we can be there to hopefully pick up any pieces that fall our way. But we just never know.
"I think last year we had the mentality that Singapore would be our only opportunity in the second half to win a race and when we didn't win in Singapore, there was a bit of disappointment and there was sort of no expectations going into Brazil and we came away with the victory there. So, we'll treat every race as an opportunity.
"We want to keep on progressing. I think as a team, we're in a good position in the constructors' championship, P2. We've made progress in the fight with Aston Martin, McLaren are obviously looking pretty strong. But, we want to keep on improving.
"We obviously would love to win a race this year, but Max and Red Bull are really strong."
Asked about Charles Leclerc's claim that Red Bull will not be beaten until the rules overhaul in 2026, Hamilton said: "We don't have a rule change coming up, so I hope that's not going to be the case is.
"But the fact is they are ahead, and most likely have been developing next year's car already a month before everybody else as they're 100, 200 points ahead in the championship, so it's very, very possible that Charles could be right.
"But we're working on the steep gradient trying to develop, and get ourselves to close the gap. Whether or not we can next year will be proof within that, I hope we can."
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