Lewis: Next Step Is A Win

By Sam Cooper
April 9 2007

Lewis Hamilton has said the next step is a win, assuming he keeps going up a place in each race, a third place in Melbourne, and a second place in Malaysia.

As many of you know, he had the enormous job of keeping both Ferrari’s behind him, in just his second race, he achieved that, but this didn’t come easily. A few laps into the grand prix, Lewis locked his breaks, causing him to lose momentum into turn 2 and turns three and four. Lewis was on his backfoot, he could feel the Ferrari breathing on him, wanting that extra place, what came next was a surprised to us all.

Felipe got in the slipstream of Lewis’s Mp4-22, he darted to one side, and comfortably got ahead of Lewis, Massa then made a mistake, and Lewis picked up the pieces, and re took second place.

After his truly spectacular performance at Malaysia, the young Lewis thinks that a win will be the next step, but he is remaining realistic in his approach to the race.

"You have to take it step by step," Hamilton said. "This is another stepping stone for me on the steep learning curve that I have and for sure the next one has to be a win, but we have to push together as a team. We are very competitive, as you can see, but we need to keep on pushing. We are doing a fantastic job and I really hope that at some point I can get a win."

"It was difficult to know where he was going to be," Hamilton said. "On the exit of turn two I knew he was extremely close and he seemed to be extremely quick down the straight. I knew he would be slip streaming me to turn four. I did move over, but not too far to compromise my exit and then he dived and I anticipated that and tried to brake as late as possible, tried to out-brake him, but he braked even later than me and I was able to get the car into the corner and he was straight. He was gone. And I knew that each time, as soon as we braked, he was going to overshoot so I was able to control the car and keep ahead. It was definitely the hardest battle I have had."