Hamilton: “It will be one of the toughest fights for the title”

Lewis Hamilton won the Chinese GP for the 5th time, thus signing the 54th victory of his career in F1. The pilot Mercedes was also placed at the height of Sebastian Vettel with whom he shares the lead in the Championship. With the 5th place of Kimi Räikkönen (Ferrari) and the 6th position of Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes), the star-studded team is in the lead with one point ahead of the Team Ferrari after the first two races.

If Lewis Hamilton dominated the Chinese Grand Prix, the Mercedes driver reiterated his impressions of having a hotly contested fight at the front this year.

“It will be one of the toughest title fights this year, perhaps the closest of my career, declared Lewis Hamilton after the Chinese GP. I'm looking forward to this fight, not only with Sebastian, but also with the other drivers who can get involved. »

“Ferrari did a fantastic job. It was great to have both been on the attack in the last 20 laps exchanging the best laps of the race, continued Lewis Hamilton. I wanted to know his times to try to set his pace. He managed to reduce his delay a little, but I managed to keep the lead. »

Lewis Hamilton built his victory by resisting tire confusion at the start with the drying track forcing drivers to start on intermediate tires, with the exception of Carlos Sainz Jr. (Toro Rosso).

“This race was very complicated. It was difficult to realize the conditions when we went out as intermediates in the grid lap, explained Lewis Hamilton. I then tried the slicks, but it was impossible to drive so we took the intermediates again but we had to be careful with the many dry parts. The track was almost dry, but some corners were still wet. We had to stay focused to keep the car on the track and maintain the tires. »