Hamilton’s focus won’t soften until title is secure

Lewis Hamilton says his feet will stay firmly on the ground over the next fortnight despite being on the brink of championship glory.

The British driver will head to Austin, Texas, a venue where he is unbeaten since 2013, in the knowledge that another victory, and failure from his fallen rival Sebastian Vettel to finish in the top two, will secure his title fate a week on Sunday.

Hamilton, 33, was in Tokyo yesterday to promote his Tommy Hilfiger clothing range before he travels back to the UK and the Mercedes factory in Brackley, Northamptonshire tomorrow.

From there, he will hop across the Atlantic for his potential championship coronation, leaving the final three rounds of the year in Mexico, Brazil and Abu Dhabi as a victory parade. But after securing a sixth win in seven rounds at the Japanese Grand Prix to move 67 points clear of Ferrari’s Vettel with just 100 to play for, Hamilton, pictured, refuses to get carried away.

“It’s easy for me not to do that because I’m very strict on not being complacent,” he said. “There are 100 points available and we have to keep doing the job until the last chequered flag.”

Hamilton entered the final two rounds of his debut season in 2007 with an almost unassailable championship lead over Kimi Raikkonen, only to fall a point short of glory.

He added: “From past experiences so much can happen so I will be at the factory this week and the focus will be on extracting as much as we can from this car.

“I was with the engineers on Sunday night, and I said to them I hope you know you are performing at your best because as a unit we are, and you should sit back and take note.

“It is sometimes difficult to take a second to acknowledge the great work that we are doing, not just individually, but collectively, too.”