MELBOURNE, SUNDAY, NATURAL BOURNE KILLER Champ Hamilton breezes into Melbourne and says: I don’t play any mind games.. I just arrive fit & ready and I’m there to kill

LEWIS HAMILTON has driven his biggest rivals into retirement and mental disintegration.

But on the eve of the 2018 Formula One season the 33-year-old insists he never plays mind games.

Nico Rosberg quit the sport within hours of seeing off team-mate Hamilton in a bitter title race in 2016.

And last year, as Sebastian Vettel wrestled for the drivers’ championship, he crashed three times, twice into the Briton, as he melted in the heat of battle.

Hamilton and Vettel are locked on four drivers’ crowns apiece having dominated the sport in recent years and both need just one to equal Juan Manuel Fangio’s five. Hamilton will start favourite to match the 1950s Argentine legend, having won three of the last four championships in his allconquering Mercedes.

The Hertfordshire-born driver was pushed nearly all the way by Ferrari’s Vettel last season after the duo had several track scrapes, most memorably in Baku and Mexico. The German – who reeled off four straight titles between 2010-2013 in his Red Bull before joining the Italian giant – had costly temper tantrums in both races.

But Hamilton insists he will not be playing any mind games with his rival when the opening round of their 21-race title battle takes place in Melbourne’s Albert Park on Sunday.

“I don’t play psychological war. Never, ever, ever have,” he said.

“My psychological war is I arrive fit and ready and I’m there to kill, and others know I’m good at what I do.

“I don’t think the best athletes want to put the others off so they perform worse. They want to perform at their best so they can prove they are better than them.

“Beating someone when they are weak doesn’t mean you’re the best. That sucks. If you ever believe you are the best because you beat someone when they are down, that’s the worst.

“I want to beat these guys at their best, when they are physically in the best shape, because then it’s going to hurt so much. And that’s what I love.”

But Rosberg – the last man to beat him to the title after a bitter civil war within the Mercedes team in 2016 – insists the British great can be beaten.

The German, who has joined Sky’s F1 pundits team for 2018, said of his former team-mate: “Lewis would have off-weekends and moments of inconsistency.

“Sometimes his weekend can be affected by how he arrives at the track. He can lose momentum in practice and be on the back foot.

“The problem is, Lewis is quite fast. He’s also one of the best of all time, so you need to push pretty hard to beat that.”

Rosberg (left) believes there is an arrogant flaw in Vettel, which was exposed during the incidents in Baku and Mexico. He added: “Vettel always thinks the other guy must have been at fault.

“It can’t be him that has made a mistake. I think he has too much self-belief, a bit like Michael Schumacher.

“In one way, it’s a strength because it gives you a really solid armour in that intense environment.

“But it can also be a weakness since you think the other guy is always at fault and you don’t question yourself as much.”