Lewis Hamilton on the challenge of Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc
Lewis Hamilton says that he might need to operate”twice as hard” to keep ahead of rising F1 celebrities Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc.
Leclerc and verstappen, together with runaway championship leader Hamilton, have proved the stars of the season up to now. Mercedes’ Hamilton along with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen have won two of the past five races with Ferrari’s Leclerc winning the other in his breakthrough success at Spa past Sunday.
Aged 34, Hamilton is older than 21-year-olds and has been impressed with their own early-career progress.
“They are doing a marvelous job,” Hamilton told Sky Sports in Italy ahead of the weekend’s race at Monza.
“It’s interesting to see their travel because I have been there at that age in the previous part of my career and seeing with the trials and tribulations that you go through. I could empathise with what they’re going through.
“I have to work twice as hard today to keep ahead of them because they’re young and fresh and energised, and it is tougher when you get older to stay as fit, as driven and as sharp.”
Although Verstappen and Leclerc are top the sport’s next generation of drivers, Hamilton remains F1′s standard-bearer and leads the world championship by a large perimeter with eight races.
The five-time champion insists”I honestly don’t know the number of points I’ve” but says he keeps tabs on his race ending positions and”that’s what I try to keep as high as you can”.
“I don’t have any idea if and when or how the rest of the tournament will go but I have to try and make sure I keep punching at the elevated level,” said the winner of eight of 2019′s hitherto 13 races.
Mercedes would be the defending champions of this Italian GP since the engine era began in 2014, with gone awry in the quickest circuit of F1. Winning a few of these races, Hamilton is also the combined Monza file holder with five successes complete.
However, has the impressive win for Ferrari at Belgium of Leclerc established the home team as the favourites at Monza this weekend?
The Martin Brundle and Simon Lazenby of sky F1 Evaluate that question and the rest of the big talking points heading into the weekend in the video above. Sunday’s race begins at 2.10pm reside just on Sky Sports F1.
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