Lewis Hamilton: “A big challenge”

36 points separate Nico Rosberg from Lewis Hamilton in the general classification of the World Championship after three events in 2016. A situation that few had dared to imagine a little over a month ago at the start of the season in Melbourne, Australia.

Despite two poles in Australia and Bahrain, the Briton was unable to convert his good performances from Saturday, slowed down in particular on the Sakhir track in the melee at the first corner following contact Williams de Valtteri Bottas. Worse in China, where the mechanics were acting up with a recalcitrant MGU-H in qualifying and a forced start from the last row, before a new contact in the first meters with the Sauber of Felipe Nasr, preventing it from starting a comeback. in the first places.

A far from idyllic start to the season for the former driver McLaren who nevertheless does not give up. “For me, it’s a big challenge, admits Hamilton on the discipline’s website. 36 points is a lot. But everything remains possible. I've been a pilot for over 23 years, so I've experienced a lot of challenges before, and some of them were probably even bigger.

I don't think I have to do more at the moment (during departures). I think I had the best start of the entire grid in the last race. We are of course working on this issue. The last two races, I was forced to evolve with a loss of performance of almost a second, and trying to climb a mountain like this is not easy. I would like to have a clean weekend, and get off to a good start. »

The three-time world champion will have the advantage of statistics in Sochi, since 2014 and the arrival of the F1 on the route drawn around the Olympic installations, never the pilot of the Mercedes W07 Hybrid n°44 has not been beaten on Russian soil.