Over the previous 20 years, a number of drivers have arrived at Ferrari as world champions, solely to fail to copy their success for the Prancing Horse. Lewis Hamilton says he’s decided to interrupt that streak.
Since Ferrari final received a drivers’ championship with Kimi Raikkonen in 2007, the group has boasted Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel – plus Raikkonen for a second stint – as world champions who’ve joined after which failed so as to add to their championship tallies. Hamilton mentioned the 2 week break for the reason that final race has allowed him time to hold out a number of conferences with Ferrari personnel, together with delivering paperwork to the group for dialogue and suggestions regarding what he feels he must be profitable.
“The rationale for it’s that I see an enormous quantity of potential inside this group,” mentioned Hamilton, who received his record-equaling seven world championships with McLaren and Mercedes.
“The eagerness – nothing comes near that. However it’s an enormous group, and there are numerous transferring elements. And never all of them are firing on all of the cylinders that they should be.
“That’s finally why the group has not had the success that I believe it deserves. So, I really feel that it’s my job to problem completely each space, to problem everyone within the group — notably the blokes which can be on the high who’re making the selections.
“For those who have a look at the group over the past 20 years, they’ve had wonderful drivers: Kimi, Fernando, Sebastian—all world champions. Nonetheless, they didn’t win a world championship [since 2007]. And I refuse for that to be the case with me.
“So, I’m going the additional mile. I’ve been very lucky to have had experiences in two different nice groups. Whereas issues are completely different as a result of there is a completely different tradition and the whole lot, I believe in case you take the identical path on a regular basis, you get the identical outcomes. So I’m simply difficult sure issues.
“They’ve been extremely responsive. We’ve been enhancing in so many areas – by means of advertising, by means of the whole lot we’re delivering for sponsors, the best way the engineers proceed to work. There’s nonetheless numerous enhancements to be made, however they’ve been very responsive. Finally, I’m simply attempting to create allies inside the group and get them geed-up – get them pushing.
“I’m right here to win. It’s crunch time. I really imagine within the potential of this group. I actually imagine they will win a number of world championships transferring ahead. They have already got an incredible legacy. However throughout my time, that’s my sole objective.”
Ferrari arrives on the Belgian Grand Prix with a brand new rear suspension that ran throughout a filming day at Mugello final week, and whereas Hamilton says little could possibly be realized in that state of affairs, he believes the Dash format might additionally delay the group absolutely understanding the extent of the good points.
“We’ll get to check the suspension tomorrow, and I’m positive there’s going to be learnings from it,” he mentioned. “We’ll determine tips on how to fine-tune it and attempt to extract efficiency from it. On the simulator, there is no distinction. However I am positive throughout completely different circuits, maybe there will be advantages.
“For me, the constructive factor is arriving on the filming day the place you see that new bits are coming. You see that we’re getting improvement. As a result of on the whole, we had an upgraded ground in Bahrain. Then it was fairly a while earlier than we acquired one other improve – I believe it was Austria. And pace-wise, it wasn’t essentially what I believed we might have.
“For those who have a look at a number of the different groups, they create small items each single weekend, like Crimson Bull usually do or Mercedes do, for instance. Whereas these are extra like large chunks alongside the best way. So I used to be simply actually comfortable to see that there clearly is an enormous push again on the manufacturing unit. There are numerous adjustments, after which to see the outcomes of these adjustments takes time. So I used to be simply actually grateful to see that we acquired new elements. We’ll try to put them to make use of this weekend.
“We don’t have numerous time, so you’ll want to double up. You could be sure to get as a lot info from each vehicles. You could do the entire session. If it’s moist, then that actually hurts your studying. However when it comes to fine-tuning the automobile, it’s extremely unlikely we’re going to completely optimize it throughout this weekend. It’s going to in all probability be one thing we’re optimizing over the subsequent few weekends.”
