Hamilton seeks to tighten title grip with fifth consecutive win

Vettel shrugs off mind games

SOCHI, Russia, Sept 27, (AFP): Defending champions Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes will seek to tighten their grip on this year’s Formula One world championship with a fifth triumph in five years at the Russian Grand Prix.

No other team has tasted a ‘vodkalaced’ victory since the event began at the former winter Olympic Games venue in 2014, Hamilton winning then and in 2015, Nico Rosberg in 2016 and Valtteri Bottas last year.

And with a 40-point lead on Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel in the title race, fourtime champion Hamilton looks set to go into the final six races of the season in confident fashion after registering four wins in his last five outings.

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff, however, has warned against complacency as they enter the championship’s most critical spell.

Hamilton’s dazzling triumph in Singapore, where his pole lap was his best form at a circuit where he won last year despite slipping out of serious contention in the title race.

Vettel, also chasing a fifth drivers’ crown, knows he also has to deliver this time after an unexpected struggle to third place in Singapore.

“I think Russia has been getting better for us in the last few years,” he said.

“It should suit our car too. I don’t think we have to fear any of the tracks that are coming up now.

“Our car is working pretty much everywhere and that’s a strength.”

Meanwhile, Sebastian Vettel has rejected the idea of using a sports psychologist to help him in his title fight with Lewis Hamilton and said on Thursday that he and Ferrari plan an unchanged approach.

The four-time world champion German lies 40 points adrift of Mercedes’ Hamilton ahead of this weekend’s Russian Grand Prix after being swept aside by the dominant Briton in Italy and Singapore.

But, he said, he and his team will not give up.

“I think it’s very simple from where we are,” he told reporters Thursday.

“We are some points behind and we need to catch up to make sure we stay there. That’s our target and the best way to do that is to finish ahead, and ideally ahead of everybody.

“So the plan doesn’t really change. Obviously, at this point, we try to give it everything we have and I still believe that we have the chance.

“I think we have a fair chance. We had races in the past that we should have won and we didn’t. And we had others that we won – (when) we shouldn’t have.

“You never know what happens, but anything is possible. I’m not aiming to win all six races. First of all, I’m aiming to win here, then once that’s done we go to the next one and we go to the next one.

Hamilton