Hamilton: Rosberg and I want cars between us

40

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."

F1i Classic: 'Gentleman Jo' Bonnier

Silbermann says ... A letter to Chase Carey

Estimated F1 driver salaries for 2016

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS: Monza

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.