Hamilton: 'Why does F2 sound better and race better than F1?'

Lewis Hamilton believes F1 is on the right track, but admits it's aberrant for the sport to be out-staged in terms of close racing by Formula 2.

The four-time world champion was the acclaimed recipient of two BRDC Awards on Monday, and spoke about F1's state of affairs, with CEO Chase Carey in attendance.

Hamilton, like everyone, wants louder sounding cars which race closer together, a hallmark he noted of feeder category Formula 2.

"From a racing driver's point of view you just want to be able to race closely like you could in karts," said the Mercedes driver.

"Kart racing is the best form of racing still, because the guys follow each other so closely.

"The cars this year are the best they've ever been. Looking at the next step, I believe Ross [Brawn] and Chase and the teams are really working hard to make sure that the next cars in 2021, they're even more raw.

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"I hope they make the cars louder. You can have bigger tyres. Why did Jackie [Stewart] have big tyres back in the day and we've got smaller tyres? Maybe a little less downforce, maybe we can race closer.

"There's no reason why a GP2 race or F2 or whatever you want to call it should be louder and sound better, and be able to have better racing, and follow closer.

"And that's what we've somehow got to make in F1, while it's still faster than the other classes."

The 32-year-old recognized Liberty Media's efforts to improve the show although he considers that F1 has work to do to catch up with other sports in terms of global awareness.

"Formula 1 has been a little bit behind other sports. It's such a special sport.

"And you look at the NFL, you look at soccer, you look at all these other sports which happen to have a little bit more of a global awareness – I think F1 has the scope to be as big as those.

"I think the great thing with Chase and the team from Liberty coming in is they've really brought something new into the mix this year, whilst they're learning at the same time about the sport, and what the fans want."

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