Vettel lost his composure completely during a battle with Verstappen in Mexico last season, and that mental weakness resurfaced in Azerbaijan, where Vettel threw away a potential victory against the odds by misinterpreting Hamilton’s safety-car-restart tactics as brake testing, then deliberately driving into his rival.

Further errors at the start in Singapore, and on the first lap in Mexico – where Vettel collided with Hamilton and Verstappen after losing the lead – suggest a residual lack of composure, or perhaps Michael Schumacher-esque clumsiness, from Vettel in wheel-to-wheel situations, which Hamilton can exploit.

“Pressure points, weak points – you just keep your foot down, keep the pressure on and when the other shows no sign of weakness… that’s definitely difficult,” says Hamilton. “Look at Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, at some point in the game one will see a slight weakness in the other – even if just half a per cent, that’s what they try to capitalise on and which makes the difference, and that’s really how it has been this year [in F1]. The key for me is to be the most solid driver here.

“I’m not going to tell you what I’ve learned [about Vettel], but you can see it and I think you guys have learned about him. He shouldn’t shy away from that. He will learn from the experiences, as we all do. I have had years like that. He has had years of complete solidity, like [mine] this year, as well.

“I imagine next year he’s going to be coming back guns blazing. But I don’t feel there’s anything I can’t achieve if I put the work in. How I strategise over these next months into next season… When you watch [Usain] Bolt out the start blocks he’s just a little bit slower than the others. He’s just behind and then he creeps back. When he backs off at the end, that’s always the goal for anyone. That’s really how my season’s been.”

Previous Drivers of the Year 2002 Michael Schumacher 2003 Michael Schumacher 2004 Michael Schumacher 2005 Sebastien Loeb 2006 Fernando Alonso 2007 Kimi Raikkonen 2008 Robert Kubica 2009 Lewis Hamilton 2010 Sebastian Vettel 2011 Sebastian Vettel 2012 Fernando Alonso 2013 Sebastian Vettel 2014 Daniel Ricciardo 2015 Lewis Hamilton 2016 Daniel Ricciardo

There has naturally been a lot of focus on Vettel as Hamilton’s main rival this year, given the way the championship battle played out, but Hamilton also has eyes on a couple of other drivers as potential threats. Former McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso is still operating at the peak of his powers, while Hamilton found himself pushed hard in several of the late-season races by the irrepressible force that is Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

If Renault can get its engine properly together over the winter, it would be great for F1 if Hamilton, Vettel, Alonso and Verstappen could all slug it out for championship glory.

“We’re the four strongest drivers,” says Hamilton. “You look at them all slightly differently. They all have different characteristics. Sebastian, this year you could say, ‘give more space’; Max takes a lot of risks, also you have to give more space, but he is more inexperienced than the other guys; Fernando, toughest driver there is, so you have to keep that utmost respect for each other, but you’ve really got to play your cards right to utilise the racecraft. His racecraft is mighty, but Max’s racecraft is [also] very impressive.

“He’s doing wonderful things, but he is going to grow so much over the next 10 years. I don’t think it will be a problem [for me], it’ll just be freaking tough. Wouldn’t that be a fight? Even I’d pay to see that. I really hope we are all in the fight next year. It would be friggin’ amazing.”

For now, Hamilton can simply reflect on a job expertly done in 2017. The manner in which he found a way to raise his game to a whole new level, amid Mercedes’ travails with its car, his own struggles extracting its potential, and Ferrari’s relentless onslaught, was the most remarkable aspect of arguably Hamilton’s best season yet in Formula 1.

He is now a four-time world champion, one of the all-time greatest drivers in the history of grand prix racing, yet he is still finding ways to get even better.