Hamilton Ready to Bulk Up for Brazilian Title Decider

Lewis Hamilton will stretch himself to the absolute limit to clinch the world championship, not only with his driving performance at the wheel of his McLaren-Mercedes but also when it comes to his physical preparation for the grueling Brazilian grand prix at Interlagos on Sunday week.

Despite his retirement from last Sunday's Chinese grand prix, where badly worn rear tires caused him to slide into a gravel trap as he came into the pit lane at the Shanghai circuit, Hamilton still believes he remains the favorite to win the world championship from his current position with 107 points after 16 races, four ahead of his team-mate Fernando Alonso and seven in front of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen.

"Well, I feel quite good after last weekend, but as soon as I returned from China it was straight back to training," he said. "The conditions will be quite hot, so we will have to change the training a bit as well as concentrating on building up the right side of my neck as it is an anti-clockwise circuit. I will probably look at some on board footage of last year, then I will go down to the workshop to talk to my engineer and go over what we learned in the last race. There is always an improvement to be made."

His confidence is clearly running at a high level. "I think I'm capable of doing it, even if some other drivers might be slightly on the back foot and struggling after the weekend I've just had," he said. "But I've taken a negative and turned it into a positive. I can bounce back."

Interestingly, Hamilton has not used the sophisticated multi-million dollar McLaren simulator to prepare for the bumpy and rutted Interlagos track.

"We use that mainly for [car] developments," he said, "but I've been practicing on my play station. I think we have to try and win the race, but at least part of our mind has to be focused on the race result. I will aim to finish on the podium, but we can't take any risks."

Hamilton acknowledges that his championship rival Raikkonen may benefit from tactical assistance from his Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa, on his home ground in Brazil, although he suggests that last year's winner will be more concerned with repeating that success rather than helping his team-mate. "I think Felipe will have plenty on his mind," he said.

Further reflecting on his failure to win in China, Hamilton believes that, ignoring the disappointment of the moment, he still demonstrated the same dominant form that earned him the fourth victory of his rookie formula one season in Japan the previous weekend.

"We made a decision to stay out on the wet tires - the intermediates - and after the first stop I was running between five- and seven-tenths of a second faster than Kimi and Fernando, so I was eating into my tires quicker than they were going to," he said. "My mirrors were just covered in mud and dirt from the rain and spray and I couldn't see anybody behind me.

"And I remember, after the first pit stop, telling my team to tell David Coulthard's team that I couldn't see in my mirrors, so if he dived inside me then I was [likely] to turn in, because I couldn't see him. That also made it difficult for me to see the conditions of the rear tires, but the team said it was going to be fine and there were only a couple more laps to do."

He added: "We were in a perfect position to win the world championship, but at the end of the day I wanted to win the race."