'We still have a gap to try to close' - Hamilton 'under no illusion' that Mercedes 'are clearly ahead'

Silas, it's been fantastic to watch you this year fighting back at the front in your rightful position. Are we daring to dream of win number 106 coming, maybe even this weekend? It's a bit too close for that probably. It's only race three and we've only just got a podium after some time trying to chase that down. So I think one step at a time and we're just going to keep trying to build on what we've had so far performance-wise. Obviously Mercedes are still ahead and so we're under no illusion that they are clearly ahead. We've qualified 7 tenths, 6 tenths and 3 tenths I think I guess ahead. So we've still got a gap to try and close and we've not yet made a step to do that. But every weekend is a new opportunity and so we'll give it our best shot for sure. With the podium and everything, the car's obviously great to drive. How much are you looking forward to this weekend? And if I can ask, what was the reception like in Yokohama when you stepped out the F40 and everyone realised it was a seven-time world champion? Yeah, well I mean obviously there's lots of different views on this year's generation of car but I mean for me it's just exciting that it's a new era for the sport. I think every time it has been a new era it's always been exciting to see where people come out and I'm proud of the team, the work we've done over the last year to get us to this point and be closer to the front and in the battle I think is really a showing of the amazing work the team's done. Of course there's bits that I don't love like the deployment and the lift and coast, some things that we happen to do and SM it's all not ideal but racing-wise it's been really, really fun. That race I had with Charles just in the second race was one of the most fun races I've had I think. Other than that maybe me and Nico in Bahrain many years ago. So I just hope we get more of that because that's what racing is about, it's like back and forth, back and forth rather than one take and then it's over. So I personally enjoy that and my point I was making earlier is that in karting it happens in karting all the time, back and forth, back and forth, no one ever calls it yo-yo racing, it's real racing. So whoever's coming out with that is, yeah that's it. And then Tokyo was really cool. I've always done these Tokyo kind of drift videos. I've always loved the culture in Japan and I know they love the car culture as well and I used to play Gran Turismo a lot and I loved it. So that's why I've used some of their kind of classic like the Nissan GT-R Skyline was one of my favourite cars. So to mess around with that but driving F40 around town and then I called for the, I asked if they could do a meet up because I've seen it online and it was cool to see some people turn up and yeah people definitely weren't expecting me in F40 but yeah still man I love that car. What makes this car seem so good for you because it seems night and day from last year's car to this year's car and you seem to be enjoying not only life but driving again which is great. Yeah I mean firstly I think on I think so on the car when I joined Ferrari last year I had nothing to do with any of the build of that car that's obviously I joined the team and the car was already in the process of being made as I joined and it was an evolution of the previous year's car and so I arrived and I was learning about a car that had been built obviously not built really for me and generally didn't suit my driving style wasn't something there was there was elements that I was asking for but we couldn't put in the season because it takes it's too expensive like suspension to build with the budget cap so the positive thing you know it was a really really hard season we didn't develop the car through the year because we decided to focus on this year's car I got to work on the simulator and really get to learn and engage with all the engineers and they're things that I was asking for so we have to have this in my car next year and they pushed I pushed and pushed and pushed we come to this year's car and it's obviously a completely new era it's a new start for everybody but I've got a couple of things on there that I that I'd asked for which I'm really grateful that they listened and did and Charlotte and I tested them and we both love it and and then just the car's a lighter and nimble less downforce but it's it's a lot more go-kart-esque he's throwing it around it's quite fun now of course if we were the car was really bad it would feel I think everyone's it's all about perspective and obviously we've got we're one of the top teams and we've got better downforce than for example the teams are right at the back and I understand there when you're at the back it's never a good feeling so but it's just a combination of it just being new and also we're in a development phase so it just gets better from here we're adding performance we're chasing performance in the wind tunnel we're chasing there's things that we're asking for hey if you build that this is where we would end up being and they're going to come over the next like eight months and that's exciting so I guess just overall enjoying that and also I've just prepared my mind and my body better than ever this year and I'm feeling good about it.