Hamilton is feeling the pressure, and he loves it!

As the battle for the world championship resumes at Spa between arch rivals Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, the Mercedes driver feels the pressure ramping up, much to his delight.

Hamilton enjoys a 24-point lead in the drivers' standings over Vettel on the eve of the Belgian Grand Prix and with nine races to go. And the rivalry between the two men is made more intense by their common ambition of achieving a fifth world crown.

"I can't tell you how Sebastian feels with the pressure," said Hamilton on Thursday.

"I can only tell you the pressure on me. It's as great as it can be. But I wouldn't want it any other way.

"As humans, pressure leads us to try to do extraordinary things, to evolve, to push the envelope, to be better in all areas."

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Before the summer break, Hamilton lined up two wins, in Germany and Hungary, and is looking to keep up the momentum at power circuits Spa and Monza before F1 heads back to Asia and Singapore, a venue traditionally unfavorable - in relative terms - to Mercedes.

"We have had two great results which have been fortunate for us," he said.

"I look at these next two high-speed circuits and we need to hammer hard to come away with great points before Singapore, where we struggle.

"I don't know how we are going to fare around some of those other circuits and these two I feel like we have a better chance compared to the last two races and we need to make sure we deliver what we did the last race and capitalise on the positives."

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Hamilton reiterated his belief that, while Ferrari perhaps has the faster car, his Silver Arrows squad has so far done a better job overall delivering the goods and managing its races.

"Maybe we weren't the best in all elements but we did a solid job to come away with the points we did," he said.

"We know the areas we need to improve but we know we have things to come.

"The second half is exciting. You don't know what will happen but what normally happens is you go from strength to strength through the good and the bad, and we have lots of positives to take into the second half of the season and there is more juice to come."

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