Lewis Hamilton celebrated his sixth F1 championship on Sunday in Austin, Texas.
Mercedes F1 driver Lewis Hamilton has won his sixth Formula 1 World Championship in Austin, Texas, on Sunday.
Rest assured, he’s not about to stop racing.
“As an athlete, I feel fresh as can be right now, so I’m ready for these next races,” he said. “We won’t let up. We’ll keep pushing for the rest of the season.”
Hamilton says his latest championship may have been his most difficult.
“It’s hard to explain what I’m feeling right now, to be honest,” he said. “Cloud nine doesn’t even get close. It’s somewhere far above that. It’s been the hardest year I can remember. It’s been so challenging, going through the ups and downs, so right now, I’m just so full of emotion, it’s overwhelming. I feel truly humbled.”
Hamilton took the opportunity to underline how much he still misses the late Niki Lauda. Lauda, a three-time Formula 1 champion, was the team’s non-executive chairman. He died in May at 70.
“It’s been the hardest year for us as a team,” he said. “We lost Niki (Lauda), a crucial member, a real pivotal member, of our team and riding the emotional roller coaster that we’ve been on after losing him. Just trying to remain focused throughout the year — that is the toughest, and only really other athletes who are at the top of their game can probably relate to that.
“Probably because it’s just: arrive: week in, week out, can’t drop the ball and being able to bounce back from the tough, lower days.”
Has the 2019 season been his best to date?
“I think so,” he said. “I definitely think so. I think last year was a year of just continuous growth, and I think this year has also been continuous growth, but I tried to make sure that I’ve started the season as I finished last year. And I think that’s just stayed through the season.
”I think I’m really just working on a masterpiece and I haven’t quite finished it yet. I’m trying to understand that it takes a long time to master a craft and whilst I feel like I am mastering it, there’s still more to master. There’s still more to add to it. There’s still more pieces to the puzzle to add. There’s going to be more ups and downs along the way, but I feel like I’ve got the best tools now — to this point at least — to be able to deal with those.”
And what about beating Michael Schumacher’s record of seven titles?
“It’s really all about how you position your thought process,” Hamilton said. “I’ve always said to you that reaching Michael’s record was never a target for me. I’m not really one that really thinks of records and those kind of things. I definitely had thought that getting anywhere near Michael was just so far-fetched and I remember having my one championship for a long period of time, then getting a second one.
“It was so far away and now though it seems so close yet it is so far away that I still can’t really even comprehend it. You look at the challenges that we’ll face in these coming months, next season. You look at these other teams that have really been putting some astonishing performances in the second half of the season. It’s going to take another load of incredible performances and work from myself and all the people who are around me and I really don’t want to have to think about it right now.”
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