Lewis Hamilton has admitted he thought his points deficit to team-mate Nico Rosberg, which stood at 43 points just five races ago, would be "impossible" to close in the remaining races of 2016.
The Mercedes driver has got the gap down to just one point after winning four of the last five races, describing it as a "crazy" and "surprising" comeback, but believed at one point it would never happen, particularly after the difficult Spanish Grand Prix in which he and Rosberg crashed out on the opening lap.
Speaking to his fans as part of a UBS Q&A session on Facebook, Hamilton explained how he's matured over the years and learned to turn negatives into positives, which is what helped him through some difficult periods this season.
"When I was younger, if I had a bad race I was so hard on myself," he said. "It was really negative. I remember some races I wouldn't leave my hotel room for three or four days, wouldn't speak to anyone. I was just trying to get myself out of this dark place that I'd be in.
"Somehow I'd pop out of it and turn it into positive. I think that's what you've got to try and do. You've got to look at the situation, even if its really negative, you've got to try and find the positives from it and leave the negatives behind. Try and learn from it.
"I look at Barcelona for example this year. It was a massive low for me. There's things you won't know until I retire that I tell you that I experienced. I got up the next day and I went for a run, that's my process, through my run I'm thinking about lots of different things."
Hamilton says his championship turnaround this season is proof that you should never give up as you don't know what will happen in the future.
"It's crazy to think that the 43-point deficit I had at the time, which seemed impossible – I'm only human so those days I feel like it seemed impossible – you've just got to keep going, as painful as it can be, as hard as it can be.
"You might get over it quickly, it might take longer but you just have to keep going. It's not how you fall, it's how you get up from those experiences that you can become stronger. I feel I'm stronger right now than I was at the beginning.
"I don't do everything perfectly, I make mistakes. There's days when I thought, 'the worlds coming to an end, I'm never going to win this championship blah blah blah,' I have those same things we all have. Somehow I try to find the positives in it.
"Look at where I am now, I'm one point behind in the championship. I'm even surprised. I'm like, 'if I had given up at one point'… it just shows you to never ever ever give up no matter what."
