McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton has said that he still believes that he is in the championship fight this season, despite initially saying he was no longer thinking of the title following his Singapore Grand Prix retirement at the weekend.
Hamilton retired from his second race in succession at the Marina Bay track after damaging his car in a collision with Mark Webber's Red Bull.
The result left him 20 points off the championship lead with four races to go, and following the race, Hamilton told reporters that he was no longer thinking about winning the title in 2010.
But in his traditional post-race interview with his personal website, and having had time to reflect on the situation, he has now reappraised the situation, saying that the gap to the top of the standings was "nothing really".
"On Sunday night, I was obviously exceptionally disappointed - it's always difficult to get your head around things when you've just retired from a grand prix - and it takes time to come to terms with that," Hamilton explained regarding his comments on Sunday in Singapore.
He added: "Clearly, it's not been a good run of results, but I don't look at those races and think what might have been, or what additional points I might have if I'd finished. There's no point.
"You just need to look at the situation facing you, and work your hardest to do your best."
He suggested that he always felt it was important not to dwell on retirements from races, and insisted that he was "looking ahead" to the last four races of the season with added motivation.
"I don't look at my retirements in Spain, or Hungary, or in the last two races as what's been lost. I'm just looking ahead at the next four races - I haven't won at any of those tracks, so I'll be even more motivated than ever to make amends for that," he beamed.
"I spoke with the team on Sunday night, and we looked at things in their proper perspective: I'm still third overall in the points table, and I'm 20 points off the championship leader.
"That's still less than a race win - it's easy to get disheartened by being 20 points away, because it sounds such a lot, but under last year's rules, that's only about eight points - and to be eight points off with four races left is nothing really."
Having looked again at the clash with Webber which led to his retirement, he suggested that the move had been less "opportunistic" than his crash with Ferrari's Felipe Massa which led to his retirement in the preceding race in Italy.
He added that he felt he had been unlucky in both races to have picked up race-ending damage through the contact. Both Webber and Massa managed to finish the races following the collisions.
"I've already said that I was probably a bit too opportunistic in Monza; but, in Singapore, I've seen the replay and I was half a car-length ahead of Mark, and on the racing line," he shrugged regarding the incident.
"It's just very frustrating that in Italy, I tapped the car in front and it broke my front suspension, and in Singapore, the car behind tapped me and punctured my tyre. I've been unlucky both times."
He also said that he would not change his approach to driving despite the two crashes, saying: "I'm a racer. I always race my heart out, and nothing will ever change that."
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