Niki Lauda's red cap is also included in the World Cup celebration in Suzuka. The racing legend is omnipresent …
(Motorsport-Complete.com) – Mercedes again writes Formula 1 history. Six drivers and constructors world championship titles in series could not win a team before the Silver Arrows. The team rating Mercedes decided already in Japan thanks to the victory of Valtteri Bottas and the third rank of Lewis Hamilton, who Driver title could already be decided in Mexico.
“In the Over the past seven years, this team has done an incredibly good job, evolving and improving every year, and I'm proud to be a part of it and to contribute to it, and today we've earned usa champagne, “laughs Lewis Hamilton after Japan -Effective-Prix, while in the background the Queen-anthem “We're the Champions” is blaring from the loudspeakers.
The Brit already celebrated the first double-pack with the Brackley and Brixworth team. Six years later, his mood is a bit cloudy despite the champagne shower and the glittering rain. Because an important pioneer of this success is not celebrating in Suzuka on Sunday.
“Of course it feels a little different today, I would not say that I am as happy as in previous years, because we have lost Niki, “Hamilton recalls the sad loss of supervisory board boss Niki Lauda , who died in May.
“It does not feel right without him, and of course I'm very proud of the team, the factory and the racetrack, and I know that Niki would pull off his cap for today's result and we owe him a lot, “the champion knows. He devotes the constructor's title to the three-time World Champion.
“I think we'll all dedicate this title to Niki.” Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff agrees with his driver. He introduces himself after the festivities and team photo, modified into Lauda in his typically pragmatic artwork would say to him: “'Congratulations to the sixth title win, but next year the next challenge awaits.' That was his artwork to make sure we never got complacent. “
“He would fool around and say that he has no friends, and I'm at least halfway,” he recalls the (Suomi)
“I miss him, we want to dedicate that to him His pure presence was always so important, his mix of support and pressure, he was a special person “, Wolff pays homage to his compatriot.
He Every day, think of the charismatic, three-time world champion. In the process, Wolff often thinks, modified into Lauda would think well: “I think of him every day and it is still hard for me to believe that he is no longer there, I always think: 'Became would probably say Niki? Became he would think of it? '”
It is still difficult to believe that Lauda is no longer under usa. “When we're with friends, with his wife Birgit and Susie, it's surreal that he's not there anymore, he was a legend.” The loss of the “ guiding star ” can not be compensated, the team boss knows.
In the Mercedes storage the red cap reminds of Lauda. That could not be missing at the festivities in Suzuka. “Every time I go to the storage, I see Niki's headphones and his red cap at the entrance, and today I've looked at them again before getting in the car,” Hamilton says.
He is sure that his mentor would be “very proud” of the whole team. Like himself, the Briton emphasizes. “I've been in this team for seven years now, but actually I've been since (**************************************************************) Years old at Mercedes and I'm incredibly proud to be allowed to drive a Silver Arrow. “
Hamilton knows the secret:” Hungry “like the first day
When he (********************************************************) – thanks (********************************************************************************) McLaren switched to Mercedes, he could feel the “total belief” that together they could create “something special”. That the team is now on the same level as Ferrari was in its heyday with Michael Schumacher unbelievable.
“It's crazy to see that we actually did that.” Became makes his team so unbeatable? Hamilton thinks he knows the secret: “The first time I was in the factory, I could feel her devotion, and that did not change with all the successes over the years.”
His team continues to be “hungry and driven,” even after the past six years. “When we started this journey six or seven years ago, we wanted to win races and fight for titles on a regular basis,” Wolff recalls.
“And six years later It's the sixth championship in a row, which makes me happy for everyone involved, a lot of hard work and some painful moments, but the team kept coming up. ” And even though the pressure was “immense”.
After all, the expectation is not only high among experts, observers, media and fans, you set your own bar in truth even higher, Wolff admits. “And if you do not live up to those expectations, it's painful because you get used to it, but we learn from those moments.”
That was, for example, on Sunday morning in qualifying for Japan Race of the plunge. Struggle Mercedes's favorite on the pole-put, Ferrari put both cars surprisingly in the front row. “In qualifying we were not fast enough, as in the previous races, and then we were disappointed.”
(**********************************************************************) “The difficult thing is to leave these emotions behind tomorrow and to plunge to work on the next championship.”
Before the team but already at the season “We wrote history today, and the funny thing is, sometimes when you succeed, you do not realize it, then you have to go back one or two steps to get that.”
For the World Cup party, the team was not optimally prepared, as Wolff admits. “Nothing was prepared, because that's a bad omen,” he laughs. “We celebrate when we're back in Europe,” he announces. The team laid the foundation for the triumph in the first half of the season.
Hamilton and Bottas started the season with five double victories 2019. Only in Monaco could Sebastian Vettel break the series. The Briton, however, continued to win: he won a total of eight times in the first twelve races alone. In both world championships, the team had accumulated a comfortable advantage.
Therefore, the team has already in the summer break on 2020 concentrated? Finally, Ferrari was able to fight back with three wins (Belgium, Italy and Singapore). “It is said that a good horse jumps only as high as it has to, but that's not the case with us,” replies Wolff to the question.
Because the regulations hardly changes, the development in the current season is important to to learn for the future. “You have to find the right balance, and that's a failure – even if we're not fast enough on a lap compared to Ferrari,” he admits.
Correct the records that Scuderia has been able to put together with Jean Todt, Ross Brawn and Michael Schumacher at the beginning of the new millennium are now beginning to crumble. Became can Mercedes still achieve anything in the future? “That's a good question: we want to set goals every year that will motivate us, break the Ferrari record and reinvent us next year.”
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