Lewis Hamilton believes his and Mercedes’ experience in Formula 1 will assist their cause in their respective title fights with Max Verstappen and Red Bull respectively.
Mercedes and Red Bull have been closely matched in Formula 1 this season with the reigning World Champions holding an 18-point lead after three events.
Hamilton enters this weekend’s Spanish round eight points in front of Verstappen, with the duo having shared victories two to one so far in 2021.
It is the first time in his career that Verstappen has been a title contender while Red Bull is in the midst of its brightest start to a season in the hybrid era.
“You’re seeing the closest battle we’ve seen for some time,” said Hamilton. “You’re seeing Max performing exceptionally well and look, he has a championship winning car, no doubt and a championship winning team who can really pull off the job this year if we don’t do our job.
“I definitely think experience will help us in terms of how we approach weekends and how we battle back from tough weekends.
“I think from my side, I would like to think experience will help but you still have to do the job, minimal mistakes.
“Reliability is going to be a big deal this year, and as you’ve seen, even these fastest lap extra points are going to be significant by the end of the year.”
Hamilton believes Mercedes’ recovery from its testing woes, and the execution of its weekends, have played a large factor in its current position.
“Definitely the first test didn’t look great and at the first race we were still up there but you could see the deficit from us to the Red Bulls,” he said.
“But I think in terms of overall output through the weekend, we’ve managed to do a better job.
“We really can’t continue to rely on mistakes from others, we’ve got to get our heads down and continue to work.
“We’ve got a good package but it does have its weak areas that we need to continue to work on. In terms of my side, I’m really happy with the output.
“Naturally you’re always trying to raise the bar, make as few mistakes as possible but they’ve been there but I’m grateful for them as they make you stronger when you learn from them.”
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