Hamilton looking to track, upgrades and home crowd to help him ‘take it to Red Bull’

Lewis Hamilton sees several reasons why the British Grand Prix will offer him a better chance of victory than recent races.

Mercedes has brought an upgrade package for this weekend, which Hamilton hopes will help cut their deficit to Red Bull. He also suspects the Silverstone will play to the strengths of their car more than the Red Bull Ring did.

“A lot of work has gone on over the last couple of weeks so I’m hoping that we come back to a circuit that suits us a little bit better and hopefully bodes well for a closer battle at least with the Red Bulls,” he said.

“There’s a lot of changes on the car but it’s not a massive update in terms of the big gap that we’ve seen in the races. But it definitely helps us in terms of closing that gap.”

Hamilton won three of the first four races of the year, but Red Bull have swept all of the last five.

“The first four races we had the car to fight and it was great,” he said. “They’ve taken a big step forwards so it’s not been too great the last few races, we’ve not been able to have that fight.

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“I’m hopeful and really working as hard as I can with the team to put us back in that similar position that we were in at the beginning of the year because I think that’s what sparked the season off as exciting as it was. Such small differences between our in performance really meant that we could play, as drivers, an even bigger role. So I’m hopeful that comes back.”

Formula 1 is introducing its new Sprint Qualifying format for the first time this weekend. Hamilton sees the shake-up in the race format, and the support from the home crowd, as further opportunities he may take advantage of.

“Another element we have is this sprint race that we have, this new format. Of course it’s easy for any of us to get it wrong but there’s opportunities there which is exciting.

“I’d like to think that the fans – there’s always been talk of the energy and buzz the fans bring and without doubt when it’s your home grand prix and it’s the British crowd you come with more, you’ve got more heat behind you.

“So I’m hoping that all those play together, closes that nice gap that those guys have grown out in terms of performance and that enables us to really take it to them this weekend.”

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2021 British Grand Prix

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