Lewis Hamilton’s breakthrough win as a Ferrari driver may have closed the gap to Kimi Antonelli to 41 points, but he accepts Ferrari still has some way to go before it can challenge Mercedes for the title.
Hamilton claimed his first grand prix win in red last time out at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya and slashed 25 points off Antonelli’s championship lead as the Mercedes driver retired.
Lewis Hamilton not focused on eighth title despite Ferrari win
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It was a historic win for Hamilton as he extended his record to 106 wins, became the first over-40 driver since Nigel Mansell in 1994 to win a race, and the first British driver to win with Ferrari in the 21st century.
The big question now is: can he go on to win a record-breaking eighth world title?
Hamilton is second in the drivers’ standings after overhauling early-championship leader George Russell at the Monaco Grand Prix.
He extended his advantage over Russell to nine points in Barcelona and also slashed his deficit to runaway championship leader Antonelli. That, though, is still at a healthy 41 points in Antonelli’s favour.
But even though this is the closest Hamilton has been to the title since his 2021 defeat to Max Verstappen, he says he’s not thinking about number eight.
After all, he says, Ferrari’s SF-26 is not yet in the same league as Mercedes’ W17.
Not only does the Brackley squad has a better internal combustion engine, as per F1’s ADUO findings, but Hamilton believes the chassis is also still a step ahead of Ferrari’s car.
“Honestly, with the way that the year started out, I have not really been thinking about it like that,” he told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets after his breakthrough Ferrari victory.
“I’ve not been thinking about an eighth.
“Of course, what we had worked towards has been being able to win, but I’ve always been conscious of the fact that it takes time.
“And Mercedes have come out the gates with a blistering car and blistering pace, both drivers doing such a great job.
“We know we have this power deficit. There’s going to be tracks where we go to with long, long straights where that makes it even harder.
“But as I said, we’ve got a great car at the core, and if we keep adding performance and we can go through the corners quicker, maybe we can narrow that deficit down a little bit until we improve or until we close the gap on power.”
But trailing Antonelli by 41 points, a margin that has never been overturned in the history of the sport to win a world title, Hamilton is taking it one race at a time.
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“Very, very hard to think long term at the moment. I think it’s just about taking it one race at a time, one week at a time,” continued the 41-year-old.
“I’ll be at the factory next. We’ll do a download, we’ll speak to the aerodynamicists, looking at all the different things that are in the pipeline, when they’re coming, what effect they’ll have, re-steer if I need to in whatever direction I feel that the car needs to go.
“We just keep pushing and enjoying it. We have to just have fun with it as well.”
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
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