LEWIS HAMILTON BELIEVES HE CAN BE IN TITLE FIGHT WITH GEORGE RUSSELL

Lewis Hamilton believes he can take the world championship fight to Mercedes’ George Russell and land his record eighth title.

Russell is leading the drivers’ standings for the first time in his career after he won so impressively at last weekend’s Australian Grand Prix.

Mercedes have hit the ground running following a major overhaul of the regulations. However, Ferrari quietly impressed and might have won in Melbourne, with Charles Leclerc leading before the Italian team fluffed their strategy lines.

Hamilton was also in contention but Ferrari’s failure to stop him for tyres during an early Virtual Safety Car cost the seven-time world champion.

However, Hamilton did finish fourth to match the best result of his Ferrari career so far.

Speaking in Shanghai ahead of this weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix, the 41-year-old said: “We are going to try and catch them (Mercedes) up and I believe we can.

“It is not going to be a short thing. It is very dependent on development. They do have a big advantage. We saw that in qualifying and in the race their advantage was between four or five tenths a lap when they were in clean air and that is a huge gap.

“However, it is great to see this team fighting, pushing, chasing and working overtime to bring upgrades because that is the name of the game.”

Hamilton, who is reported to be in a relationship with American reality star Kim Kardashian, added that he is in a “happier place in my life” than last year.

Hamilton endured a nightmare first season at Ferrari. He was out-qualified and outscored by team-mate Charles Leclerc and at one stage even called on Ferrari to replace him with another driver.

Hamilton flew out of Melbourne with Russell to China on Sunday night.

“Lewis was really happy and positive after the race,” said Russell. “The general view from the two of us is that it can be quite a close fight between us and Ferrari.

“I was very impressed with Lewis’ performance. I thought he was very unfortunate not to be on the podium.

“He was quicker than Charles and the lap times he was doing were the same as what we were doing at the front.

“He showed that when he’s got a car that he’s happy with, he can do the job and he’s as good as he’s been. The last few years, the car probably hasn’t suited his driving style.

“They were challenging to drive. They were on a knife edge. These are lighter cars and feel more like the previous generation, when the cars were dancing around more.”

Addressing his own title prospects, Russell insisted: “I’m not getting ahead of myself because I’m one race down and I’m not even thinking about any championship.

“Even when I raced in my junior formulas and I was fighting for championships almost every single year of my career, I’d only really think about the championship at the last race of the season. And what I needed to do to get it over the finish line, not what I needed to do to get myself in that position.”