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Lewis Hamilton says that his victory at the Canadian Grand Prix has delivered a "great blow" to Sebastian Vettel and his Ferrari team in the midst of the title battle between Mercedes and the Italian squad.
The Brit drove faultlessly on Sunday to lead from lights to flag, while his team-mate Valtteri Bottas finished second to secure a valuable 1-2 result for the Silver Arrows. As a result of this, the championship lead held by Vettel - who finished fourth after trouble in the early laps - has been slashed to 12 points as the teams look to Baku.
After a troublesome weekend in Monaco, where he started thirteenth and came home in seventh, Hamilton was understandably happy with his win: "It's been an incredible weekend - I couldn't be happier," he said. "The team came away from Monaco scratching their heads but everyone wanting to work, to pull together, which we did.
"I don't think in the five years I've been with the team, they have pulled together so well and really worked towards the same cause. To come here and deliver what we've delivered is a great blow to the Ferraris."
Despite his dominant form in qualifying and the race, however, Hamilton is still very much aware of the threat Ferrari poses; Vettel's fourth place was achieved after a determined recovery drive, and the result proved to be strong damage limitation for the Scuderia. Turning his attention to the challenge from Ferrari, Hamilton added: "They are still very, very quick and they are still very much there.
"They are going to be very hard to beat. More importantly for us, we know now after the last race where to develop this car going forward and that is really going to make a difference in winning this championship."
Mason Hawker
Grand Prix of Belgium
G. Zhou
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calle.itw
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Not at all. We pretty much expected Mercedes to be stronger here, if Ferrari were to beat Mercedes on a power intense track something would be very off. And Mercedes didnt dominate thanks to their prowess this time, it was more down to Ferrari getting a bad start and plenty of bad luck during the... [Read more]