Lewis Hamilton has insisted that he will not alter his approach to Grands Prix despite increasing his points advantage over Sebastian Vettel in Formula 1’s title battle.
Hamilton and Vettel exchanged the lead of the championship on several occasions through the opening half of 2018, but the Mercedes driver has sat atop the standings since Germany.
Hamilton extended his advantage over Vettel from 17 to 30 points courtesy of his Italian Grand Prix triumph, the largest gap either has held at any stage this season.
It means Hamilton has more than one win’s worth of points in hand over Vettel with just seven events remaining but the Briton has stressed that it has not changed his focus.
“I have not thought about it as I have not changed the way… at the moment there is no reason to change the way I approach races as there are a lot of points still available,” he said.
“The approach is still exactly the same as it has been all year long.
“It seems to be working so that’s really… we’ll just keep that up as long as we can basically but we do expect to have some difficult races up ahead.
“Obviously Ferrari have been ahead of us [in pace] for the past few races so we’ve got to keep up with them if not pass them but it will be tough.”
Hamilton has taken victory in Singapore, venue for this weekend’s Grand Prix, on three occasions, back with McLaren in 2009, and with Mercedes in 2014 and 2017.
Looking ahead to the event, he said: “I honestly never have expectations every time I come to races.
“I guess ultimately our expectation is to give it our all and try to perform as well, if not better, than we have in the past races.
“I think collectively as a team we have done a tremendous job over the past few races so we want to try to keep that quality of performance.”
