Hamilton: Four vital races to go

Lewis Hamilton insists that every race is now vital as he looks to secure his second F1 title.

Hamilton has failed to score in three of the last four races to drop to third in the drivers’ championship behind Fernando Alonso and is now 20 points down on Mark Webber with just four races left to run.

The McLaren driver will now look to bounce back to form at Suzuka this weekend to close the gap to the pair ahead and having admitted that he will evaluate his approach, the Briton said he was keen to ensure he produces the goods for his team.

“I'm clearly looking at all of the races that I've done and looking at how my approach has been and trying to evaluate and try to take a step back and try to see it as something I can improve on, of course,” he said. “It's difficult to pinpoint one particular part. Of course, I could go and drive around and not overtake anyone and just stay in position, that's easy enough but that's not me, so that definitely won't be happening.

“I don't think this race will be particularly more crucial than the next three races. I think they're all very important to score maximum points. Clearly, if I had finished the last three races or the three races that I've missed, I'd be in a much stronger position but that's life and there's nothing I can do about it. I can't go back and change it; all I can do is try to recover and try to apply myself in the most productive way towards my team and towards myself and towards the racing.

“My plan, of course, is not to arrive at weekends and see how hard my team works and let them down and let my family down, or let my friends down or let myself down. So I'm doing as much as I can. I hope that this weekend is a stronger weekend. I feel good about it, so we will see.”

Following the Singapore event, Hamilton had admitted that his title hopes were hanging by a thread, but two weeks on, the Briton admitted the title was very much still there to be won.

“I think at the time I clearly had quite a few tough races with the failure in Hungary, and then we had a win, and then we had two DNFs, so it was just after two tough races,” he said. “I think it's very easy to get your emotions mixed up with your thought process, but I think after coming away from it, there are still four races to go and looking back at the history of the sport and looking back particularly at this season and seeing how close it still is, after many people made mistakes and certain situations, it clearly shows that it isn't impossible to win.

“I still feel very optimistic. I still know that clearly I have a tough job ahead of me and it's going to be tough for all of us but I feel that I have as good an opportunity as anyone and so I'm going to work as hard as I can to make sure that I finish the races. Generally, when I finish races it's not so bad, so fingers crossed that that will be the case.”