Happy Hamilton warns Vettel: 'I'm stronger than ever!'

Lewis Hamilton doesn't believe he has one hand on the world title, but the Mercedes driver did acknowledge his position of strength against arch-rival Sebastian Vettel.

Both Hamilton and Vettel are fighting for a fifth world crown this year, but the Brit's dominate form of late coupled with his opponent's errors have left him with a comfortable 40-points advantage in the Drivers' standings.

However, with six races to go, Hamilton has no intention of loosening his grip on the championship or letting complacency creep in.

"I don’t think you ever have one hand on it, you either have both hands on it or you don’t," he said on Thursday in Sochi, ahead of this weekend's Russian Grand Prix.

"There's still a long way to go, a lot of points available. Six races are still a lot of races, it's a long season.

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"We're really just head down, everyone's working incredibly hard to continue to improve the car.

"We're going to be faced with different challenges as we come to these different races, so the job is still exactly the same. The target is still exactly the same and the approach is still exactly the same;"

The early part of Hamilton's campaign was marked by a relative underperformance to Vettel and Ferrari, but the Mercedes/Hamilton combo gradually recouped the upper hand as it worked to understand and improve its complex W09 Silver Arrow.

But Hamilton also suggested that better communication and personal time management had helped him raise his game, the 33-year-old now feeling "healthier, happier and stronger than ever".

Ahead of this weekend's race, Hamilton reckoned Mercedes was better positioned this year to perform at Sochi than in 2017 when the race took place earlier in the season, when the development of the team's car was still in its early stages.

"Our understanding of the tyres is far greater than it was when we arrived here last year.

"It's still a challenge to get right. So, we will take our understanding from last year and that experience with a pinch of salt because the car is different, it's improved, and we've got different tyre this weekend."

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