Lewis Hamilton reckons his bid for a second world championship has a “fresh start” heading into the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim, with his points deficit to Mercedes team-mate and championship leader Nico Rosberg majorly cut.
The 2008 World Champion’s championship aspirations have twice taken a massive hit, having retired from the season-opener at Australia and at Canada due to unreliability, allowing Rosberg to take comprehensive leads in the championship and left Hamilton will plenty of work to do to recover.
Although Rosberg suffered reliability problems of his own last time out in Silverstone, recording his first non-finish of the season due to a gearbox problem and saw Hamilton virtually wipe out Rosberg’s 29 championship point lead having inherited the race lead and gone on to take victory.
Speaking ahead of the German Grand Prix, Hamilton was aware of how much further back he has been in the championship standings compared to his team-mate and feels it was necessary for him to be on level terms with Rosberg in that respect.
“I feel like I’ve been on the back foot all year, only briefly leading the championship despite taking the wins I’ve had, so to have got myself just about level was exactly what I needed.
“It’s almost a fresh start heading into the second half of the season and it’s going to be a really close battle between us.”
Hamilton is hoping that reliability problems endured by Mercedes are behind them and that him and Rosberg can battle each other on track.
“Of course, you never want to see your team-mate fall away, but hopefully we can now strike a line under the retirements and push each other all the way on track,” added Hamilton.
“You can’t have everything – the best car, the best pace, the best speed at the end of the straight and perfect reliability – because things are on the limit. But I know how hard the team are working to get as close to that benchmark as we can possibly be.”
