• Indian Grand Prix

Hamilton doesn't harbour title hope

Lewis Hamilton sits 62 points behind Sebastian Vettel with 100 still available © Sutton Images

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• Race:
• Indian Grand Prix

• Drivers:
• Lewis Hamilton

• Teams:
• McLaren

Lewis Hamilton insists there's not even a small part of him still believing he can win the 2012 championship.

Following his tenth place in Korea Hamilton is now 62 points behind Sebastian Vettel in the drivers' standings. When it was put to Hamilton that he suffered a dramatic turnaround in fortunes to his detriment in 2007, he said the points difference was much greater on this occasion for him to take any hope from that instance.

"I was 17 points ahead going in to the last two rounds in 2007; how many points is 17 in today's points? It's a much bigger deficit," Hamilton said. "And that took a lot of bad luck so … Sebastian doesn't have that! And Fernando's driving fantastically so no, I don't necessarily think that's the case."

Hamilton also believes Red Bull will be "way ahead" of the rest of the field if the teams get a dry and clear race weekend.

"I think on a dry weekend they're way ahead, as they were in the last race … [It's] not really [a shock] because they've done it every year. It's not a surprise - they did it in 2010, they did it in 2011 and then they've done it again, so when they do it again next year it's not going to be a surprise. It's because of the way the rules are, the car's just evolving every year and they've just been on the same design path for those four years or whatever it is and it works. So they just stick with it and it gets better and better, whereas everyone else is 'Shoot, ours doesn't work so well so we've got to change it' or move philosophy or whatever it is."

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