Lewis Hamilton says he is just hoping to get into top ten in 2013 – Formula 1 news
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton has played down the suggestions that he could challenge for the title in the 2013 Formula 1 season and expressed that he is just hoping to score points to finish amongst the top ten drivers.
The Brackley based team had a quite successful pre-season testing programme in 2012. Moreover, their driver, Nico Rosberg claimed an impressive victory in the Chinese Grand Prix after securing his first ever pole position. However, Rosberg and his teammate,
Michael Schumacher could not score points with consistency during the preceding season because of the technical issues in their cars.
Although, Hamilton signed a deal with Mercedes during the last season to replace the seven-time world champion in 2013 with great hope to take the team to new heights. But, the Briton has said that he is just looking forward to secure a position amongst
the top ten drivers rather than scoring victories as there are chances that they may face some reliability issues in this year too.
“I haven't seen anything just yet,” Hamilton said. “We're not looking at wins at the moment. We're hoping to get in to the points this year; we're hoping to get in to the top ten.”
In addition, he said that he cannot expect to compete with Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull Racing and Fernando Alonso of Ferrari in this season as they have not been able to develop a competitive car as compared to their rivals.
“It doesn't mean it's impossible but I think people are talking us up at the moment with Vettel and I think Fernando saying I'm going to be competing for the world championship. Well I really don't see that happening at the moment. Of course that's our goal
but you've got to remember the car was sometimes two seconds off last year and we've not caught two seconds up,” he added.
Besides, he said that they need to increase the downforce of their car to perform well in this season. Lastly, he asserted that they are targeting to come up stronger to score as much points as they can in this year’s championship.
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