Hamilton enjoys battle with Verstappen: "It's a cool season"

With Max Verstappen as the current leader of the Formula One championship, Lewis Hamilton has to case for the first time in years. The Dutch driver from Red Bull Racing has built up a comfortable points lead through his victories in Austria and that puts him in a favourable position. Lewis Hamilton will not let go of the championship though and is getting ready for an exciting battle in England at Silverstone.

Fun season

The big question for this weekend is whether Hamilton can come close to Verstappen. If he can, we have the potential for another great battle like we saw earlier in the year. Although Hamilton is currently behind, he is relishing the challenge.

Asked if he was enjoying it, the seven-time champion said in a new F1.com video: "Very much so, it’s one of the biggest challenges that we’ve had and it’s putting pressure on us like never before and we’re loving it. We’re enjoying it. It’s everyone pushing to the limit and we’re learning a lot about eachother and we’re communicating better."

The team members at Mercedes now have to operate at the cutting edge and that creates a firm challenge. Not everything goes right, as we have seen a few times now, and that leads to frustration, but at the same time the British driver states that it is a cool season. Hamilton: "Each race and in particular the difficult ones are pushing us to communicate more and question things. So, it’s a cool season."

Battles with Verstappen

The duels Hamilton fights on track with Verstappen are regularly very sharp, where an inch less space could have caused damage. However, this is not unfamiliar territory for Hamilton given he has had previous battles with other top drivers. The battles with Verstappen are even more intense though, as you can tell from his words.

Hamilton: "I feel like we’ve had this sort like battle with, it feels similar with the battle with Vettel in the Ferrari. And maybe it’s even closer then that. When you grow up, you have this wheel-on-wheel battles in karting every day, every weekend. So it’s great to see we have this close and tight battles."

"Those guys (Red Bull Racing, ed) are a little bit ahead at the moment, so we got a massive challenge to try to make sure we maximum capitalize on there. Weak moments, if they have any and really try to extract the best of each of every single on of us in the team."