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Hamilton wants Mercedes progress in 2013

ESPN Staff
January 29, 2013 « 'Great things are possible' - Boullier | Testing chance surprises de la Rosa »
Lewis Hamilton wants Mercedes to improve on its 2012 haul of 142 points © Mercedes
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Lewis Hamilton says his target is for Mercedes to improve on its 2012 performance this season, but admits "nothing but first is ever acceptable".

Having made an encouraging start to last season as Nico Rosberg won the Chinese Grand Prix and followed that up with second place in Monaco, Mercedes slipped off the pace and ended the season hanging on to fifth in the constructors' championship ahead of Sauber. However, while Hamilton has won races in every season of his Formula One career so far, he said a positive result would be for Mercedes to improve on last year's showing.

"Nothing but first is ever acceptable - at least in my books - but of course we have to be realistic and know that we've got some serious competitors who have good cars already that will be evolving in to this year's car," Hamilton told Sky Sports. "So they're already starting from a good position. For me I think we want to do better than they have done; last year was a tough season for them. The guys are working towards having a better year than they did last year and anything further past that ahead of where they were last year is a positive."

Hamilton believes that Mercedes has already made progress over the winter as a result of analysing what went wrong in 2012.

"From what I've been told and what I've seen the guys have been working hard to change around certain things with wind tunnels and restructuring of groups and what they focus on, and I think having a better understanding of where they are so they know where they're going. It's difficult to know where you're going unless you know where you've been and so they've been working hard on that. They've got a much better understanding of where they were last year and have been building on and improving that for this year.

"It seems from the results so far we look like we've had some positive readings but of course they just need to keep going. Once the season starts we need to go even harder and continue on that route that they're already on. I think last year they were saying that they started off quite well but then lost their way and didn't know where they were going and didn't seem to improve so just stayed on a steady line, whereas this year we want to continue on that route."

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