Lewis Hamilton has sent out a daunting message to his championship rivals after claiming his dominant Styrian Grand Prix came on one of his weaker tracks.
After taking pole position by over a second on Saturday, Hamilton controlled the race from start to finish at the Red Bull Ring where he has only once triumphed previously back in 2016.
But after stuttering to an error strewn fourth place at the same track last weekend for the season opening Austrian Grand Prix, the world champion hit back on Sunday in stunning style to take a dominant one-two for Mercedes in front of Valtteri Bottas, admitting he had put in much work to rectify the wrongs between the races at the circuit.
‘This is one of my weak circuits so to get a performance like this today I’m over the moon,’ he told Sky Sports. ‘I’m so happy, but I also know there is a long way to go.
‘Last weekend was definitely psychologically challenging. To have the penalties, being called into the stewards before the race and get a penalty, and another later in the race… that was definitely not easy.
‘All you can do is channel the energy and focus on the future. So I stayed here, trained, ate and slept well. I worked hard with Bono [race engineer] and the guys to understand where last weekend went wrong and correcting it.’
The result means Mercedes have won seven of the last eight races stretching back to the Russian Grand Prix last season – and both of the opening rounds of the 2020 campaign held at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg.
The Silver Arrows have dominated F1 since 2014, winning the drivers’ and constructors championship for the last six years of the turbo-hybrid era.
Hamilton insists their commitment to achieving success does not look like ending anytime soon, praising the team’s ‘relentless’ and ‘passionate’ work ethic which sees them huge favourites to once again claim both world championships this term.
‘We’ve had so much success over these years. The easiest thing is to lose focus to ease up and lose determination,’ he added.
‘I don’t see that ever happening it just doesn’t seem to exist with us. The guys back in the factory are relentless. The guys here continue to be passionate over what they do.
‘When we are talking about the car they jump straight on it, they don’t jump to conclusions, they do great research and this weekend we have not had any problems, thankfully. There is still a long way to go. I think this is a step forward.’
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