Lewis Hamilton says both he and Nico Rosberg would welcome a challenging weekend in the Singapore Grand Prix to aid their respective title bids.
While Rosberg has won the last two races, Hamilton finished third in Belgium despite starting from the back of the grid and second in Italy after a poor start. Mercedes surprisingly struggled in Singapore last year as Ferrari and Red Bull fought for the win, and Hamilton says a challenge from the other teams would help the drivers if not Mercedes itself.
"Last year was difficult and we hope it won’t be the same," Hamilton said. "I’d have to think about it. If Ferrari are closer and more competitive then that is not such a bad thing if there is opportunities to put space between us [myself and Rosberg] and Nico would say the same thing.
"We also want to win every race as a team 1-2 so we are hoping for a good weekend."
And Hamilton says he and Mercedes will have learnt from his poor start in the Italian Grand Prix by the next race.
"Of course we never stop learning and improving. [In Monza] we would have learnt again. This year has been harder with our clutch and they will be working very hard. It is not a quick fix and something you can change each race.
"We have made improvements and seen consistency with our starts but we are still caught out by the variations from one weekend to another. We do practice starts all weekend and they vary a little bit but sometimes we get a drastic variation on the grid.
"It is something we will continue to work on and it will be the only thing we will talk about [between races] because everything else we’ve been doing really well. We will try to work and give us much information to learn and see if we can do more. We are not struggling with getting pole positions it is just getting of the line."
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