Lewis Hamilton admits his desire to beat Sebastian Vettel and claim a fourth Formula 1 world championship is the reason for recent downbeat comments.
The Briton appeared back on form after the low of Monaco with a commanding victory in Canada and dominating the weekend in Baku, but a loose headrest would end hopes of a near-certain victory, dropping him to fifth and then a grid penalty for a gearbox change in Austria would again swing the momentum away from the Mercedes driver after being the man to beat on Friday.
Hamilton acknowledged the constant setbacks at individual races and then in the championship more broadly are having an impact, but insists they are not affecting his feelings of his own personal performance or the overall battle with the Ferrari driver.
“Generally when there is adversity, it’s an opportunity to grow and do something pretty special,” he said. “I’m really generally happy with the way I’ve been driving. I think it’s important for people who are watching and people who are reporting to understand that.
“You have to have patience with us drivers, and I can’t speak for everyone else, but you can’t be happy every day you have a result, whether it’s second, fifth, 10th, whatever it is, you’re going to be pissed at one point because you put so much into it.
“You train, you sacrifice everything to make sure you get the best result possible, so when you don’t personally deliver and other things are stacked up against you, it’s hard to come out smiling and be all ‘it’s fine’ because that means you don’t care enough. And the fact is I care more than anything.
“So there are days where it feels more painful than others. There are days where it’s easier to handle and move forward. So just when you make comments or write your stories or when people make comments, just bear that in mind. It’s not a sign of being ungrateful or anything like that. It’s an intense battle which I’m loving and I think we are enjoying as a team, but I want to win this championship.”
Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff says he can understand the feelings of Hamilton and suggested the team had “let him down” with the recent problems.
“In my opinion, Lewis had all the bad luck than you can have, we’ve let him down with the headrest, we’ve let him down with the gearbox. Now it’s about time to fight back and hopefully that’s going to happen in Silverstone,” the Austrian said.
“It can’t go much worse than it has, and still we are flat out in a fight. It’s so early in the season. So, we’re not even halftime and we start counting points.
“It’s about time that this changes, the momentum going in the other direction,” he added.
“He wouldn’t be as successful as he is if he wouldn’t feel the pain as much as he does when he has a bad day when he loses.”
