Lewis Hamilton has heaped praise on the F1 youngsters on the grid today, saying he is driving against the very best in the world.
Hamilton is 36 years old, which means he is on the older side of things as far as drivers are concerned. But the seven-time champion has not slowed down a bit; in fact he seems to get better with age.
However, at this stage in his career, he is surrounded by plenty of youngsters on the grid, and is regularly battling them for points and track positions.
The current has season has seen Hamilton go up against 23-year-old Max Verstappen, who is posing a challenge to him like Nico Rosberg did in 2016. The young Dutchman is just two points behind the Mercedes driver after the Russian GP, and the title race could genuinely go down to the wire.
Hamilton heaped praise on the F1 youngsters on the grid today, saying it was an honour to drive against them at this stage of his career.
“It’s a magical moment,” Hamilton said during the post-race conference at Sochi, as quoted by GP Blog.
“I could only ever have dreamed of still being here and having this opportunity to win these races and get to drive against such phenomenal talent this late in my career, and to continue to building with Mercedes, of which I’m so proud of everything we’ve done, not only on track but also off.”
Appreciation
Hamilton had kind words for Lando Norris, the young McLaren driver whom he was battling with for the majority of the Russian GP, only for Norris to completely lose out after a huge gamble.
“He’s so young, he’s got so many more wins up ahead of him,” Hamilton said.
“He did a fantastic job yesterday in the wet. He’s doing a great job leading that team, and look, McLaren won the last race. They’ve been very hard to beat for us all, but yeah, just blind faith at the end there. I put all my faith in my team and they called me in and I believed them.”
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