Hamilton not thinking about sixth title despite standings gap

Lewis Hamilton insists he is not thinking about clinching his sixth world title despite the 73 point lead that he holds at the top of the championship.

Hamilton took his ninth victory of the 2019 season on Sunday, as he led home a Mercedes one-two in Russia - leaving the Silver Arrows' win record at Sochi untainted. 

His current lead is 23 points more than what it was at the same point in 2018. Despite the healthy margin, the 33-year-old insists he will focus on the task at hand and not think about the championship.

"I just don’t try to think about it," Hamilton said. "It’s not that it’s difficult, it’s pretty easy just to focus on the task in hand and it’s not easy at the moment so honestly just focusing on trying to be the best I can be each weekend, one race at a time and making sure I’m just delivering at a high rate."

Hamilton added that the current performances from some of the F1 drivers show that it is one of the "best years" in terms of skill, which is causing him to raise his own game.

"What’s really impressive is just to see how naturally we’re fighting against the Ferraris who have got great pace but Charles, Valtteri, Seb, Max, Carlos, some of the other drivers are really performing so well," Hamilton stated.

"I think it’s one of the best years I’ve seen the drivers perform in terms of just class performances, so it’s meaning that everyone is having to raise their bar including myself.

"I’m enjoying that challenge and as I said, just one race at a time. The next one is going to be super hard to try and beat these guys again but not impossible as we’ve shown today."