Lewis Hamilton isn't getting concerned yet by his deficit to Max Verstappen in the Formula 1 championship.

With three wins in four races, the Dutchman has opened up an 18-point lead over the reigning world champion and heads into this weekend's Austrian Grand Prix as the favourite to extend it further.

As for Hamilton, he hasn't won since Spain, with Mercedes going four races without a win for the first time in the hybrid era.

“They’ve done a great job in these last four races,” said Hamilton of Red Bull on Thursday in Spielberg.

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“It’s been really difficult for us from Monaco, which obviously was a bit of a disaster and then the same for Baku, better in France and better last weekend but they have taken a step ahead of us, so we are just working as hard as we can to see if there’s a way we can close that gap."

While all the momentum is currently with Verstappen and Red Bull, with 15 races still planned in 2021, Hamilton sees plenty of time to recover.

“We’re not even halfway through the season so I am still fighting and chasing for this title," he continued.

“I don’t really find myself being concerned as such. We are all pushing as much as we can, we would love to have more pace at the moment to be able to really challenge, not only in qualifying but in the race.

“They’re continuing to take steps forward but I can’t get tied up and get into that negative bubble of worrying.

“All I do right now is that I am trying to put all the energy into being the best prepared, helping the engineers be best prepared, lots of great conversations and this is the time we come together and we unite and we work as hard as we can to rectify whatever issues we have.

“That’s what we do, that’s why we’re world champions and I have confidence in the team that we can do that.”

The current winless run has seen Hamilton step up his efforts within the team, however, even heading to the same simulator he claimed to only do "20 laps a year" on back in May.

“I can’t say that I’ve enjoyed it!” Hamilton smiled.

You know Merc are on the backfoot when Hamilton of all people is in the Simulator pic.twitter.com/Lh8ma66gFi

— itsmarlonlol (@investedpuppy47) June 30, 2021

“Particularly after those few difficult races we had, I just went in to try and see if there’s any way I could try and help the team just be better prepared.

“There’s been a couple of good things from it, but not life-changing.

“I’ll continue to work with them, we’ve got drivers on there that do a lot of work, I think just working on the processes of how we communicate with them on their programme, so we’re getting the right things tested.

“Overall, it’s been positive.”

Finally, Hamilton clarified the confusion on Mercedes upgrades, after team boss Toto Wolff suggested all focus was now on 2022, only to be contradicted by Chief Technical Officer James Allison a few days later.

“I mean I knew that we had that upgrade coming,” Lewis said after Allison confirmed some aero and engine improvements were in the pipeline. “At the end of the day, everyone is working absolutely flat out.

“We are learning more and more about this car, we are discovering where we need to push more and extract more, and I have all the confidence in the team that we will do over the course of time.”