• Mercedes driver’s championship lead now 40 points • ‘The focus is intense. It has to remain the same if not more’

Lewis Hamilton believes he and his Mercedes team are in the best possible position to close out the Formula One world championship after his win at the Singapore Grand Prix. The British driver took a dominant victory from pole position and his title rival Sebastian Vettel could manage only third, ensuring Hamilton now has a 40-point lead with just six races remaining.

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Ferrari were expected to be on top at the Marina Bay circuit and they were until Hamilton put in an exceptional lap to take pole. The Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, described it as “stardust” and the best lap he had ever seen. Hamilton and Mercedes followed it with a perfectly executed race that Ferrari could not match, with their aggressive strategy unsuccessful and Vettel unable to challenge.

Hamilton has now won four of the last five races and the four-times world champion believes he can keep the momentum going. “We are going from strength to strength in terms of our understanding of the car,” he said. “We are far more comfortable at our job now. Six races ago we were struggling, trying to find that bit of magic, but we have now figured the car out.”

He is now firmly on the front foot to win his fifth title. If Hamilton secured second place at the remaining meetings, Vettel would have to win them all to be champion. However Hamilton insisted the aim was to seal the championship as soon as possible.

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“The focus is intense. It has to remain the same if not more. We don’t have to change our approach,” he said. “I need to win every race and I focus on that. I arrive wanting to win.

“There will be weekends when we know we will be comfortably stronger, and weekends like this when we know we will be behind but we will still try to win. I didn’t think we would have 40-points advantage. But it’s not the end.”

Vettel hit the wall at Marina Bay in practice, ending his running for the session, one of a series of costly errors the German has made this season Hamilton identified as having made a difference. “Vettel damaged the car and lost running that’s not us lucking in,” he said. “I take a lot of pride in making sure I do not put myself in those positions. It is only small percentages that you get wrong and they have bigger ramifications.”

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Before the weekend began Hamilton had been flying around the world to launch his Tommy Hilfiger clothing range and he had faced questions over whether it was a suitable way to prepare. His results in Singapore he believes emphatically answered them. “The balance that I have in my life, in general is really good. I am glad you have seen this,” he said.

Wolff backed his driver. “He was in Shanghai on the cat walk, in New York a couple of days later and he came, rock and roll, and blew everybody away,” he said.