Mercedes have confirmed that Lewis Hamilton will still race at the Brazilian Grand Prix despite having to delay his flight due to illness.

Hamilton was forced to delay his flight and pull out of a sponsors appearance on medical advise from his Doctor. A spokesman for the Mercedes team said Hamilton had been suffering with a fever and upon medical advise he would fly to Sao Paulo one day later. This will still be in time for the first practice session at the Brazilian Grand Prix.

“He’s not going to miss the race,” “He’s going to be a day late… the doctor advised him to cancel the earlier flight so he missed a press conference today.”

Hamilton has made it clear in the build up to this race that he wants to win here this weekend as a salute to his childhood hero Ayrton Senna whose home race was Brazil.

Despite winning his first World title here in 2008 he has generally struggled to perform around Interlagos so this is a race event he will not want to miss having never won around here on 8 previous attempts. Like Hamilton Senna struggled around here also taking him eight attempts to finally get his first win on home soil. If he wins here in Brazil and then in Abu Dhabi for the season finale Hamilton will also join Schumacher and Vettel on the joint most race wins in a F1 season with 13 wins so he is not short of incentives to make sure he is fit and well.

He also has some extra incentive to win here this year as his team-mate Nico Rosberg managed to snatch pole position from underneath him by three tenths of a second before going on to lead the race from start to finish eventually finishing ahead of Hamilton by just over one second.

By: Chris Laker
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