Sebastian Vettel 'still believes' in his chances to win the 2018 drivers' world championship despite being 50 points behind with five races remaining of the 2018 campaign.
After Mercedes took the decision to swap their drivers in favour of Lewis Hamilton winning in Sochi over his team-mate Valtteri Bottas, Vettel once again saw his points deficit to Hamilton widen for the third consecutive race after taking the final spot on the podium at the Russian Grand Prix.
The four-time world champion admits it is now likely going to take reliability problems in two races to prevent Hamilton beating him to a fifth world title, but goes further and admits he would rather not see it happen to his British rival.
While he knows it won't be easy, the German is still aiming to win the remaining five races of the season, however, it still wouldn't be enough for the Ferrari driver.
Hamilton could still remain on the podium with one of the results being in second place in the remaining races, even if Vettel wins all five races the Mercedes driver would still be crowned world champion for a record fifth time.
"To be honest, I go race by race. Obviously I’m clever enough – I wasn’t a genius in maths – but I was clever enough to pay attention to make it up myself but it’s not getting easier if we lose points.
"I still believe in our chances; yes, obviously it’s not getting bigger, as I said, if you finish behind but who knows, it takes one DNF and then all of a sudden things look different – ideally two! – which I’m not wishing on Lewis but you never know what happens.
"We need to stay on top of our game which maybe we haven’t been completely this weekend: make sure that from where we are now we focus on winning the last races."
Should Vettel finish behind Hamilton at the next race in Japan, Hamilton will get his first opportunity to wrap up the drivers' title at the United States Grand Prix in Austin.
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