Fangio in his sights: Hamilton wants fast start to F1 season

Lewis Hamilton will try to lay down a marker in this week's season-opening Australian Grand Prix as he sets his sights on beating fierce rival Sebastian Vettel to a fifth F1 world title.

Mercedes's reigning world champion and Ferrari's Vettel can both join the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio as five-time world title-holders this year, second only to Michael Schumacher's seven.

Vettel swept home in last year's opening race against Hamilton in Melbourne before the British ace went on to land the championship with two races to spare from the German.

Ferrari once again have sizzled in pre-season testing along with Red Bull, pointing to a potential three-team assault on this season's constructors' title.

But Hamilton, who is reportedly about to sign a new contract with Mercedes which could earn him up to 40 million (US$55 million) per year, says at 33 he's motivated to blaze on.

"It doesn't feel like the start of the final chapter, and I don't feel as though I am about to embark on my last contract," Hamilton told reporters.

"I want to arrive in Melbourne fit. I want to hit my target weight. I want to kill it through practice, get pole position and I want to win the race convincingly.

"I don't know how long this feeling is going to last when I go into a new season, but as long as I am still feeling like this I will keep going."
"We are completely fired up."
- 'It's going to be close' -
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"I'm super-confident in my team and the work they've done, I just think it's going to be close."
"Melbourne in 2017 was a combination of my errors and some misfortune, I crashed in qualifying and then we had a technical issue for the race. So 2018 is definitely time to get what we deserve in Melbourne."
"I think we need to look after the driver's safety, but what we have implemented is aesthetically not appealing and we need to come up with a solution that simply looks better."
"Can you imagine how we would all feel if something happened and if we would have had the halo it would not have happened?"