Vettel and Hamilton 'looking forward' to close title fight

40

Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton say they're looking forward to the prospect of a genuine battle for the drivers' title in 2017.

Recent seasons have been dominated by Mercedes with no other teams coming close. But on Sunday, Vettel demonstrated that Ferrari is a real threat this year by clinching victory in Melbourne.

Now both drivers say that they hope that continues into the rest of the season.

"For sure I would love to have a close battle," said Vettel. "Obviously right now it looks like we have equal machinery. I hope it stays that way and then we will see how it turns out

"It’s obviously a lot of fun to race for victories and a lot of fun to race against the best.

"I have great respect [for Lewis]. He’s proven to be one of the quickest drivers on the grid," Vettel continued.

"I think he had an amazing debut here ten years ago. I still remember his move around the outside, when he made other people look a bit silly!"

Vettel 'over the moon', but still a long way to go

Hamilton agreed with Vettel's view that it looked like it was going to be a hard-fought campaign this season.

"Incredible amount of respect for Sebastian and what he’s achieved in his career," Hamilton said.

"It’s been a privilege to be racing in an era with him. And now finally at a period of time when we can actually have a real race.

"The fact that we are similar pace-wise [means] it’s going to be a very, very hard slog this season.

"It’s going to be physically and mentally demanding. But as Sebastian said, racing the best is what Formula 1 is all about. Ultimately it makes you work that much harder, having to raise the bar.

"I’m looking forward to that."

GALLERY: all the pics from Sunday's action

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

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.