Texas offers Hamilton first shot at fifth F1 world title

IT WILL be high fives for Lewis Hamilton in Austin tomorrow if a fifth win in a row brings the Briton a fifth Formula One world title.

The Mercedes driver is on the brink of joining the late Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio as a quintuple champion, with only seven times titleholder Michael Schumacher ahead of them in the alltime lists.

Hamilton is 67 points clear of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel with three races — and a maximum 75 points — remaining after Texas.

That means the title will be Hamilton’s if he scores eight points more than the German, something the Briton has done for the past four races and a total of eight times in the 17 grands prix so far.

On paper, with Hamilton and Finnish team mate Valtteri Bottas one-two in the last two races and the champion triumphant in five of the past six races at the Circuit of the Americas — including the last four — the title is there for the taking.

Hamilton has won five races in a row before, in 2014 when the sequence involved the same five as this time, and is in the form of his life with nine wins so far this season.

“With six race victories in the last seven races, Lewis has shown what a class act he is,” Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said this week.

“Both on and off the track he is more complete than ever before, showing commanding performance in the car and challenging the entire team to perform to higher levels at the same time.

“The battle is far from over, so we approach Austin the same way as every other race: take it one step at a time, focus on our job and make sure we bring performance and reliability to the track,” added the Austrian.