No celebrations for title-chaser Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton said he will not be celebrating after his dramatic victory in Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix, but will instead be concentrating on the five remaining races in his bid for a second drivers’ world title.

“There’s a long way to go yet,” said Hamilton. “So, no. No celebrations tonight.”

Hamilton took a three points lead in the drivers’ championship after capitalising on Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg’s misfortunes with an electronics failure that forced him to retire by grabbing the 29th win of his career.

Afterwards, he told reporters that he was concentrating on taking each race as it comes, with next up the Japanese Grand Prix on October 5.

“I’m not thinking about that, the title, no, not yet,” said Hamilton. “To be honest, it’s a bit surreal now. I was thinking of getting seven points to cut the lead. Not scoring 25.

“For me, it still feels like I am hunting and chasing. But it’s a good feeling.”

“In the race, I was worrying about the tyres. For sure, I always do. I just wanted to bring the car home so I was really looking after my baby.”

Asked by Sky Sports TV about his daring late passing move on four-time champion Sebastian Vettel, he said: “When I passed Sebastian, I just knew I’d get by, but to be honest if I couldn’t do it there and on fresh tyres I would be pretty useless.

“But going inside at Turn Six, well, I went through and then I thought ‘phew, that was close!’

“But you know, it’s a great feeling to drive this car and to know that you’ve really got a car that you can fight with. The team has done such a great job to make the fastest car.

“For me, it is the best feeling of my racing career.

“But my big fear is always the tyres. I worry that they are going to blow up. To explode or something, because I have experienced it all before.”

Vettel said he was taken aback at Hamilton’s passing manoeuvre.

“With the overtaking move, I wasn’t sure what he was doing. I gave him all the space to pass me on the inside of the next corner, but it seemed he couldn’t wait to get back in the lead.

“I had to back off and let him through. There was no point fighting. To finish P2 was the best we could do.

“We had the oldest set of tyres in the last stint so it was quite tricky managing those with not much tread left.”

Hamilton admitted: “I had a tight gap. Maybe I should have overtaken him somewhere else, but fortunately Seb was very fair.”