Hamilton Concedes He’s in for a Real Fight With Verstappen: “2021 Season Will Be the Hardest”

For much of the turbo-hybrid era, it has been a cakewalk for Lewis Hamilton. His sheer talent, combined with the supremacy of his Mercedes car means he’s had no equal during his successful title run. Though that no longer may be the case as Red Bull’s Max Verstappen is here to rattle his chains.

The Dutchman’s raw pace has frequently been compared to that of Lewis Hamilton. But Red Bull has never been able to provide him a piece of machinery capable of contending for the title. So, this year everyone’s licking their lips as the RB16B is less than no other car on the grid.

And even though they couldn’t emerge victorious in Bahrain, they had their noses ahead for most of the weekend. Hamilton’s wheel-to-wheel battle with Verstappen went down to the wire. And instead of dreading it, he’s relishing the fight. In an exclusive interview with Gazzetta, he said –

“When a season begins you never know where you are and I love all of this. The 2021 season will be the hardest in a long time, but for me and the team it can be very stimulating.” (quotes translated from Italian using Google)

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‘Not everything under my control’ – Lewis Hamilton

Despite winning a multitude of championships, Hamilton does not arrive on a race weekend and expects everything to go accordingly. There is always room for improvement in his quest for excellence.

“It is always a great challenge, very hard. Winning so many World Championships does not mean having everything under control, that every year everything goes smoothly, you can always improve in ideas and communication,” said Hamilton.

Talent can only take you so far. This is especially true in F1 where you need the whole team to pull together as a single unit, “Basically, the team is like a big boat with a lot of people rowing, but you need to take the best route: the pilot is only one element but it is like the radar pointing towards the right direction.”

For all the discussions surrounding his potential retirement, the fire is still burning inside of him. The title fight will go right down to the wire. And he won’t do his legacy any harm if he emerges on top.