Lewis Hamilton has been described as being "more complete than ever before" ahead of the weekend the Englishman could become a five-time Formula 1 world champion.
Hamilton will clinch the 2018 Drivers' Championship as early as this Sunday at the United States GP if he outscores Sebastian Vettel by eight points at the Circuit of the Americas.
How Hamilton can be champion in Austin
Hamilton: Vettel deserves more respect
For that to happen, the most likely scenario would be for Hamilton to win the race with Vettel finishing third. Hamilton has headed a Mercedes one-two in each of the last two races and a repeat in Austin would be enough for him to win the title with three races to spare.
The stunning form which has seen the 33-year-old burst to the brink of another title has been praised by his Mercedes boss Toto Wolff.
"With six race victories in the last seven races, Lewis has shown what a class act he is," said Wolff.
"Both on and off the track he is more complete than ever before, showing commanding performance in the car and challenging the entire team to perform to higher levels at the same time."
Mercedes wary of 'freak incidents'
With a 67-point advantage over Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel with just 100 points left up for grabs, Hamilton appears almost certain to clinch the 2018 crown barring a collapse in form wildly out of keeping with his and Mercedes' usual high standards.
Hamilton has won the last four races, finished on the podium at eight in a row, and suffered only one race retirement in the last two years.
However, his team are not celebrating anything yet and warned "it is closer than it looked in recent races" between themselves and Ferrari.
"Freak incidents can happen everywhere," cautioned Wolff. "A DNF and a consequent bad result suddenly wipes out a large chunk of your points.
"I know from a probability standpoint it doesn't look like it, but this is motor racing, it's a sport and anything can happen.
"I don't want to even think about him breaking a finger.
"I don't want to dwell on it because this is bad karma too, so let's just get it down. Let's go to Austin, have a strong race weekend and hopefully seal the championship."
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