Hamilton hopeful of eliminating weak spot ahead of 2019 season

Lewis Hamilton says he and his Mercedes team have identified their weak spot ahead of the 2019 season. The reigning champions will be hoping for a positive start to the year which sees several changes to the cars including the redesign of the front wing.

Hamilton won out against Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel in their race for a fifth world championship title, putting together an almost flawless season and equalled Juan Manuel Fangio's record of five championships.

Mercedes battled with Ferrari throughout the season and whilst at times were the slower of the teams, won the development war battle between the two teams. Despite winning the championship, Ferrari signalled their capabilities of challenging the Silver Arrows and Hamilton is already focused on eliminating any weaknesses in the team.

"For next year's car, I have an idea, for example, where the weak spot will be with these new rule changes.

"As do (the team), so just working closely, communication, and we're all of us constantly working so closely together, really elevating each other.

"If you look at the team's performance on the race weekend, that our mechanics, our engineers, strategists, we've all raised our game.

"It's never ever been perfect, neither of us as drivers, but collectively, as a team, I think we've really continued to elevate ourselves which is inspiring for me and that encourages me to go out there and not want to let them down.

"So I'm confident. As long as Mercedes don't change their approach, don't change their desire to win… some teams decide to veer off and do some other business venture and lose a bit of focus on the main ultimate goal; as long as they don't do that, I believe that we'll be able to stay on this path and continue to fight at the top."