Daimler and Mercedes boss Dr Dieter Zetsche has cautioned that it’s too early to consider Lewis Hamilton as a shoe-in for the World Championship, despite the Briton’s healthy lead.

After Monza Hamilton heads team mate Nico Rosberg by 53 points, or more than two race wins, while Sebastian Vettel is now 74 points adrift of the leader.

“We saw with Nico [in Italy] how fast you can lose a significant amount of points which you already calculated in,” Dr Zetsche this writer. “So let’s wait until the mathematics tell us where we are.”

Meanwhile Zetsche said that his satisfaction at Mercedes winning on Ferrari’s home ground in Italy was tempered by Rosberg’s engine failure.

“Of course, it was a very exciting race. At the same time we are very unhappy for Nico who had bad luck throughout the weekend. But that’s racing. It was the sixth race for his engine, and normally nobody’s running six races on an engine.

“Our engines are very, very reliable. He had to push to recover, and all the data showed that the engine was perfect until two laps before the end.”