Lewis Hamilton described his position as “not comfortable at all” even though he is leading the championship with quite a margin over his rivals Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo.
The Mercedes is headng into Japanese Grand Prix with 34 points leads over Ferrari with the availability of 125 more points in five races.
“I am under no illusion. I might have the nail a little bit in, but I need to keep hammering it,” said Hamilton, “It is not done until there is no more to push it in.”
“There are so many points available and you have seen other years where things swing,” Hamilton added.
“The pendulum can swing. I am hoping if it starts to swing the other way we have enough force to push it back to where it should be.”
Ferrari has faced issues during the championship but it has raced at a better pace than Mercedes in the past two races. Vettel started from end but finished fourth in Malaysian Grand Prix with his qucik Ferrari.
Vettel responded to a question regarding his chances of acing Hamilton, “We have a chance. I tend not to rate many things. I think there is a chance and we make sure we use it.
“We are behind so it depends on what Mercedes are doing. We just have to do our best and we need to score much more than them. How we achieve it doesn’t matter as long as we do achieve it.”
Lewis Hamilton is racing to ace his fourth world title like Vettel.
Mercedes had “definitely still question marks” about car’s pace, said Hamilton. He further added, “I saw some stories that we had been thrown off the ball or are on the back foot. We’re not.
“We are still leading the championship, we still have a great car. Each race is really just about trying to understand more about the car because there is constantly something new coming in the mix that can catch us off guard.
“That is the exciting thing about this car. If the car was perfect every weekend, it would be boring and we are enjoying the fact we are being challenged and that she is not the easiest.”