Lewis Hamilton has raised concerns over both his unusual pre-race preparation with Will Smith plus a cautious tyre strategy but had faith in his Mercedes squad to dominate to an 11^th victory of the year to cap an outstanding 2018 Formula 1 worl𒀰d title-winning campaign.

Hamilton 𒉰led from pole position before pitting during an early Virtual Safety Car, triggered by Kimi Raikkonen’s mechanical breakdown for Ferrari on the start/fini🐈sh straight, which dropped him to fifth place.

While managing his tyre life over a long stint to the chequered flag, Hamilton duly saw his rivals pit ahead of him to regain the lead before manag♓ing the gap to Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel to take a comfortable victory.

Hamilton becomes the first driver in F1 history to break the 400-point barrier in a single sea꧒son, finishing on 408 points, with 11 wins and 11 pole positions to cap a stellar campaign having secured 🎐his fifth world title.

After the race Hamilton revealed he spent most of his&𝓰nbsp;preparation d💮oing sponsor and media work with Hollywood star Will Smith, who was a Mercedes and F1 guest in Abu Dhabi, which “completely changed my pattern”, according to the British driver.

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Hamilton was also anxious about his tyre strategy having been the only front-runner to pit under the Virtual Safety Car, despite having the plan as part one of his key strategies be💟fore the race in the eventuality of an early VSC, but was cautious over making his tyres last the remainder of the race with his rivals on fresher rubber attacking in the final laps.

“It was the right, it was on my strategy before we went into the race so I anticipated that would be the⭕ case,” he said. “Sometimes, less often, but sometimes during the year we could do the whole race distance on the same ty🅰re before the tyre falls apart but I am always cautious when they say you could do the whole race distance without stopping in the race.

“My engineers always talk about stopping supe🐠r early. They're𝓀 way too chilled behind the wall!

“I was like 'yeah, I’ve ✃got a long way to and this doesn’t feel too good right now'. But it lasted long, once again they were caജlculated and correct and that’s why we have to put so much trust in those guys.

“A big, big thank you to Mercedes and all of the team, all of the sporting partners. We wouldn’t have had ♊this championship without them.”