Hamilton’s ‘aggressive caution’ leads his F1 title charge

Lewis Hamilton says he won’t change his approach to the final six races of the 2017 Formula 1 world championship despite taking a healthy 28-point lead over Sebastian Vettel in Singapore.

The Mercedes driver profited from Vettel’s first corner clash with Max Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen by taking a surprise win in the wet at the Marina Bay Circuit having appeared to be off the pace of Red Bull and Ferrari during practice and qualifying.

After taking the F1 points lead for the first time in 2017 in Italy, Hamilton now holds more than a race win’s worth of points at the top of the standings thanks to his hat-trick of wins since the summer break.

Despite his useful points advantage with six races remaining the three-time F1 world champion says his approach won’t alter due to the championship complexion with a mix of aggression and caution.  

“I definitely won’t change anything because the approach that I have is working ,” Hamilton said. “It’s the perfect balance of being aggressive and being cautious at the same time. The formula works at the moment so I will just continue with it until the last race.

“I can’t believe it’s my 60th grand prix win and I don’t know why it’s not sunk but also the gap [to Vettel] is also quite hard to believe. I definitely went into today thinking it was about damage limitation, trying to minimise the loss somehow. So, to come out in completely another direction for sure is a shock but I’ll take it. I’m grateful for it and as I said we’ve been working so hard as a team.”