F1 digest: Lewis Hamilton has doubts over title chances

Reigning Formula 1 world champion seeks
improvements ‘in lots of areas’

One-Minute Read

After his victory at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Sunday
Hamilton has a four-point advantage over Ferrari’s Sebastian
Vettel. The win in Baku was his first of the season after finishing
second in Australia, third in Bahrain and fourth in China.

However, despite the small lead, the British driver
believes that Ferrari and Vettel – who won the two opening races –
are still the title favourites for 2018.

Hamilton told Sky Sports: “Obviously being in the lead of the
championship is great but if we continue on the trajectory we’re
on, it would need tricky races like this to keep us in the
fight. 

“There’s been two weird races where it’s kept us in the
mix, but you can’t rely on those for the next 17 that are
left.

“We need ultimate performance and confidence in the car
and I’ve got the pace within me, and I think the car’s got the pace
within it, but both of them are not being intertwined in perfect
synergy to extract the perfect equation.

“We’ve definitely got to improve in lots of areas, and I
mean myself as well, and that’s what I’m going to work
towards.”

Verstappen: everything is fine with
Ricciardo

Max Verstappen says he and Red Bull teammate Daniel
Ricciardo are “fine” despite the duo crashing out of the Azerbaijan
Grand Prix following their collision in Baku.

Autosport reports that Verstappen has spoken
with Ricciardo about the incident and the team needs to “stay
positive” ahead of the next race in Spain on 13 May. 

Speaking to Red Bull’s Servus TV channel, Verstappen said:
“Obviously we talked about it. Daniel and I are completely OK with
each other. We can both see that what happened isn’t good for the
team.

“We’d already had some tough battles, but everything was
fine. It was hard but fair. Now we’ll obviously need to go to the
team in Milton Keynes and apologise. But then we need to stay
positive, because I think we have a really good chance coming in
Barcelona. We’ve got a lot of updates on the car, it all looks
really good.”