I’m still in this fight, says Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton insisted he could overhaul Nico Rosberg in the Formula One world championship for the second time this year after relinquishing his hard-won lead in the standings in Singapore.

Hamilton fought back from 43 points behind earlier in the season to establish a 19-point lead — only for his Mercedes team-mate Rosberg to clinch his third straight win on Sunday to go eight points clear.

Rosberg won qualifying by more than half-a-second from Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, with Hamilton back in third, and the German then led wire-to-wire for his eighth victory in 15 races this season.

Despite Rosberg’s increasingly impressive form, Hamilton said “with a good weekend” in each of the last six races he could again recover the deficit.

With a sizeable chunk of the record, 21-race season still to go, starting in neighbouring Malaysia in two weeks, Hamilton said he would take the positives from a difficult weekend fraught with mechanical issues.

“This weekend has just been a bit of a tricky one for me, but I’m still glad I could get back up on the podium and get some points for the team,” said Hamilton, who finished third. The Briton took solace from the fact that Mercedes have the best car, and also that the topsy-turvy season had taught him eight points was not much of a lead.