F1 title race: Lewis Hamilton says he won’t take his foot off the gas despite 59-point lead over Sebastian Vettel

Lewis Hamilton is action during the Japanese Grand Prix
Getty Images

Lewis Hamilton has no plans to go on the defensive, despite boasting a 59-point lead over Sebastian Vettel in the Formula One title race, with just four grand prixs remaining.

Hamilton picked up his eighth victory of the season in Japan yesterday, while Vettel was forced to retired following a spark plug failure.

But the 32-year-old Briton said he would maintain his aggressive approach rather than defend his haul, with 100 points still up for grabs in the championship battle.

“There’s not really any need for me to change the approach,” he said. “I’m not really particularly taking crazy risks in order to be in the position I’m in, so I think we’re just going to try and continue to do what we’re doing.

“And I think if sometimes you come off the gas a little bit, you actually cause yourself more trouble than you need.”

Ferrari’s Vettel had led the championship by 14 points at the summer break, but Hamilton has since won four of the last five races, while his German rival has endured a catalogue of issues.

Despite the shift in momentum and the size of his championship lead, Hamilton insisted he was taking nothing for granted. “There’s still a long way to go,” he said. “Anything can happen.”

At the end of the race in Suzuka, the championship leader had complained of vibrations in his car, raising the threat of a potentially costly engine change for the next race in the United States in two weekends’ time.

But he played down any major concerns, saying: “I don’t honestly think there’s anything wrong with the engine. I felt a couple of things, so you just point out things that you might forget to tell them afterwards.”

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