Vettel denies he has cracked under pressure in 2018

Sebastian Vettel has denied that he has cracked under the pressure of his championship fight with rival Lewis Hamilton in 2018. The Ferrari driver had enjoyed arguably the better package in the SF71H, with Mercedes only recently reasserting their dominance over the Italian team.

Vettel has made a series of high profile mistakes including crashing out of the lead at his home grand prix at Hockenheim as well as a costly spin in wheel-to-wheel combat at Monza with Hamilton in a race Ferrari should have realistically won, but the man himself said that whilst he hasn't enjoyed the pressure, it hasn't affected how he races.

"Pressure is not necessarily fun," he told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "But it doesn't always exist where people often suspect from the outside.

"You drive for yourself and for those who help you to compete at this level.

"One guiding principle helps me, it's that no one is ever as good or as bad as it is said. And I always like to reflect on what brought me to racing: my enthusiasm and joy."

Hamilton recently defended his rival, saying that the media had been too harsh on the German and that he "deserved a little more respect" from the press.

Ferrari and Vettel have to make up a seemingly insurmountable gap to Hamilton in the driver's championship to stand any chance of winning it, with the gap between the two up to 67 points with just four races remaining.