Winning an 8th title will be a tall order: Hamilton
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LONDON • Mercedes' seven-time Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton has admitted that winning an eighth drivers' title this season will be a "tall order".
Ahead of this weekend's British Grand Prix, which he has won a record seven times, the Briton is 32 points behind Red Bull's Dutch star Max Verstappen (182) after nine races.
Red Bull have won the last five races in a row - Hamilton's last win was at the Spanish Grand Prix in May - with Verstappen chasing his fourth successive victory.
"It's what I dream of and am working towards. I am massively driven. But it's a tall order," Hamilton told BBC Radio 5. "Red Bull's performance has gone a little bit out of reach but we are working as hard as we can to close back up.
"When a challenge comes up, I face it head on. I have never run away from a fight. When we entered this season and we saw the challenge we had on, it was like, 'Game on, love this, this is what we live for'. It has been exciting."
The 36-year-old was hopeful car upgrades would give him more of a chance of fighting back.
"A lot of work's gone on over the last couple of weeks... There's a lot of changes on the car but it's not a massive update in terms of the gap that we've seen in the races," he said, adding that Red Bull's advantage appeared to be two to three tenths of a second a lap.
Mercedes have won seven of the last eight British races and also taken nine consecutive pole positions at Silverstone.
Hamilton also said that he was inspired by the reaction of England footballers to online abuse after their Euro 2020 penalty shoot-out loss to Italy in the final last Sunday.
He agreed with Jadon Sancho, who posted "hate will never win" in reference to the public support shown to the black players - himself, Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka - who missed penalties.
"Love conquers all," said Hamilton, F1's only black driver. "We do have a long way to go, we need to grow from these experiences but I was really, really proud of how the England squad handled it as a team, all coming from different backgrounds."
REUTERS
BRITISH GRAND PRIX
Practice 2 (6.55pm), sprint qualifying (11pm)
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