Hamilton making sure to 'match the excellence' of Mercedes' crews

Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes' crews, from the factory floor to the race team, have been sparing no effort this season to turn around the outfit's fortunes and the Briton is doing his best to match their "excellence".

Mercedes was caught out last season by the introduction of F1's new technical regulation platform, its first ground-effect design failing to extend the Brackley squad's remarkable period of dominance in the sport.

Mercedes has ceded its leading baton to Red Bull, but the team is working tirelessly to try and catch up with its rival. It only won a single race last year - courtesy of George Russell in Brazil - and has yet to add another winner's trophy to its gleaming cabinet this season.

After enduring earlier this year another difficult start to its campaign, Mercedes made progress over the summer and the German outfit now holds the runner-up spot in the championship with eight races to go.

But reclaiming its spot at the top of the field will require its troops to continue their unwavering efforts, with Hamilton also doing his part suit out on the track.

• Read also: Mercedes 'optimistic' maximum-downforce Singapore will suit W14

"You’re always digging as far as you can without depleting yourself, naturally, and I think everyone in the team is giving absolutely everything too," said Hamilton, speaking ahead of this weekend's Singapore Grand Prix.

"That’s time away from their families, there’s times where these guys are working seven days a week. These guys are flat out so I’m trying to make sure that I’m matching their excellence."

For all the frustrations suffered by Mercedes in the past 18 months, and despite his inability to challenge for a record eighth world title, Hamilton says that he's extracting a lot of positives from his team's prolonged period of relative underperformance.

"I think in the past it was more about the destination rather than the journey," he explained.

"And I’m trying to enjoy the journey as we go, the struggles that we’re having, the ups and downs that we have, and just the day-to-day parts of life and being a racing driver.

"Each weekend you’re still trying to take risks and trying to get that car to do something that it doesn’t want to and that’s something I enjoy doing.

"If and when the car is willing to go further, I’m willing to go further. I’m willing to go as far as it needs in order for us to win."

Hamilton, who recently extended his commitment to Mercedes for an additional two years, emphasized how the team's struggles have forced it to find new ways to improve its performance, a constructive quest he shares with race engineer Peter 'Bono' Bonnington and trackside operations director Andrew Shovlin.

"Year on year you just learn to be more efficient with your time and with your energy," he said.

"At the end of the year we’ll – Bono and I, and Shov – we’ll go through a list of things that worked and which didn’t work and just be honest.

"Like: ‘we keep doing this, this does not benefit my weekend at all’. Take that off and it gives you more time to focus on other areas or you add more things in which can benefit the team as a whole.

"I think the communication has improved massively in this past year and I think it’s been a really interesting process for people to be able to sit down and say ‘you know what, we made the wrong decisions, can you work with us to help rectify it and move forwards?’ And that’s what we’ve done this past two years.

"I think it has been a growing experience within the infrastructure. I have to probably try to commit even more time just through sheer will and wanting to get there.

"I think everyone has. But I don’t mind this because we don’t like to lose and we love the job that we do. So I’m enjoying it."

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