- US Grand Prix - Mercedes
No reason why Vettel won't win again - Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton does not think he will be able to pull off a repeat of last year's US Grand Prix and beat Sebastian Vettel to victory on Sunday.
Vettel is on a role of seven wins in a row at the moment and arrives in Austin as the favourite after a dominant victory in Abu Dhabi two weeks ago. Hamilton, meanwhile, has been struggling for form and doesn't fancy his chances of beating the Red Bull before the end of the season.
"That's our target every weekend, but if you look at it objectively Sebastian has won by over 30 seconds at every race for God knows how long. There's no reason he won't do that again," he said. "When there's such a big advantage you don't close it from one weekend to another. If I was able to get ahead of him in qualifying we might be able to see a different race, so that's my target."
Hamilton said he was still struggling with his Mercedes car and does not feel like he has been at his best at any point this season.
"I can't really pinpoint it. At McLaren I had been there for a long time and every year I pretty much had the car built for me and around me to make me more comfortable in the car. The car was at a point where I could put it where I wanted it because we'd tuned it for a very long time.
"This year I've really struggled with the car, genuinely. Inevitably I've not been able to reach my real potential. We've still had some good races, but in those races I could have done better. All the pole position laps apart from Silverstone weren't even that special a lap. Just imagine if I was happy in the car. Hopefully I'll have a lot more input into next year's car. I won't be driving Michael [Schumacher]'s car next year, I'll be driving my car."
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