Lewis eager to fight rival teams

Editor

Lewis Hamilton admits he prefers battling for the title against drivers from rival teams, saying "it's better" when you beat someone in a different car.

With Mercedes dominating the 2014 season, the Drivers' Championship was a straight battle between Hamilton and team-mate Nico Rosberg with the former claiming the title.

If pre-season form is anything to go by then Merc will once again set the pace this season, but double World Champion Hamilton would rather fight for the title with drivers from other teams.

"I think it's more exciting when you're battling another team, and growing up watching Formula 1 I think it was more exciting seeing two teams fight each other," he said.

"Having competition within a team is still exciting, but it's different when you're competing against other teams – it's better to beat the one in the team and beat another team.

"In 2008, it was quite neat because the Ferrari was exceptional on faster circuits: places like Silverstone, circuits with more high-speed corners, but on the medium to low speed circuits we [McLaren] were always better than them.

"Trying to minimise the loss in those races when they were faster – I enjoyed that battle. Plus I wanted to beat the guy in the car next to me.

"When you do both it's two for the price of one."

Hamilton and Rosberg, though, still had some tough battles on the track last year with their collision at the Belgian Grand Prix giving the Mercedes powers that be plenty to think about.

Both drivers were forced to apologise after a high-level meeting, but Hamilton is confident they have moved on and won't have the same problem this year.

"I don't really know what to say about that," he said. "We had a lot of races last year where we did really well and we plan to do the same thing in terms of trying to win for the team. We haven't sat down and discussed anything about last year. I think we learned a lot through the year last year, so there is no need to discuss it."