GreenBkk Formula 1 | 2010 offers good baseline for 2011 campaign - Hamilton

2010 offers good baseline for 2011 campaign - Hamilton

Credit: ESPN F1 (http://en.espnf1.com)

Lewis Hamilton is expecting a better year in 2011 © Getty Images

Lewis Hamilton believes the 2010 season has given McLaren the baseline to build a very competitive car for 2011.

Hamilton finished fourth in the drivers' championship with McLaren second in the constructors' race. He admitted that Red Bull had the edge throughout the year but pointed out that it had a much more successful 2009 season to build upon. In 2011 he believes McLaren will have everything in place to come back stronger and challenge its main rivals.

"It's just a feeling that we learned a lot as a team this year - we had a very positive atmosphere within the organisation from the start of the year, and we only built on that during the season," he said. "Jenson [Button]'s arrival made us a stronger team and I think our joint input helped us to stay in the hunt until the very end. Obviously, our 2010 car was quite a significant update of our '09 car, but now I think we have a very good baseline from which to evolve this car into 2011.

"We're growing all the time as a team - I had a new race engineer in 2010 and with one season under our belts, we can be even stronger next year. I think Jenson will be have a very positive influence on our development over the winter so that we can start testing the new car very aggressively when testing resumes in February.

"And I think that we'll be even hungrier. I want to congratulate Red Bull Racing for their 2010 season - they were a fantastic competitor, and Sebastian and Mark [Webber] are both great drivers, but I know that we already have our eye on both titles in 2011."

He added that he was not dwelling on mistakes he made at the Italian and Singapore Grands Prix, which resulted in two retirements from high-placed positions.

"We saw throughout the summer that the Red Bull was the car to beat, and even though we brought a lot of developments to every race, it became clear that they were able to react equally, and that made it extremely hard for us to close the gap," he said. "Of course, my non-finishes at Monza and Singapore didn't help my momentum, but that was also true of my mechanical retirements in Spain and Hungary.

"Overall, I don't think it's worthwhile to look at the 'what ifs' of a season, because every driver has moments when he could have done better, or would have done something different, so you just have to accept what you have and make the best of it. For me, it was an honour to once again be fighting for the title in the final race of the season for the third time in my Formula One career."

Credit: ESPN F1 (http://en.espnf1.com)