Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

Wolff: 'Exceptional' Hamilton crucial to Ferrari fight

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Toto Wolff says Lewis Hamilton is "exceptional" will be a key factor in Mercedes' fight against Ferrari this season.

Hamilton has won three of the opening four races this season, with Sebastian Vettel the only other driver to win a race following success in Malaysia. While Mercedes has more points this season than at the same stage of last year, it also has a much closer challenger in Ferrari.

Nico Rosberg was a distant third in Malaysia before also losing out to Kimi Raikkonen in Bahrain last weekend, leaving him just a point ahead of Vettel in the drivers' championship. With Hamilton out of contract at the end of the season, Wolff was asked how crucial it is to hold on to the double world champion and admits he will be key to the fight with Ferrari.

"Of course Lewis is a factor and an exceptional guy in the car," Wolff said. "Like always in life it needs to be a win-win situation and at the moment it is a win-win situation, we have a quick guy in the car and a very quick car.

"We have solid foundations in the team and we have built an organisation that can be successful on a sustainable base long-term with the challenge of Ferrari bouncing back very strongly. So, yeah, it’s win-win."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.