Hamilton: I've a mission and its not just winning titles

The 36-year-old Briton, winner of a record 100 grands prix, is chasing an unprecedented eighth world championship in a tight battle with Red Bull's 24-year-old star Max Verstappen, who is 12 points clear with five races remaining.

Hamilton told Sky Sports television that his campaign, and use of his platform to push the conversation, had given him fresh energy and made him mentally stronger than ever: "This year I've not been drawing on past experiences, I've been drawing on feeding off this energy of doing this positive work.

"So now it's the work that I'm doing in the background and then I'm turning up and I'm enjoying this job. Is it helping me race? I think so, yeah. It's like my new drive and I feel like it's giving me more longevity because it's a lot of work we have to do. I feel like it also gives my life real purpose."

Hamilton said he had days when he did not want to train and was unsure about continuing: "There's definitely been times where I'm like, I don't know if I can keep going, or maybe there's something else I want to do. But I don't think I'd found my purpose until last year.

"Now I feel like I have a mission in life and it's not about just winning championships and races, that's all cool, but actually being able to make an impact to help youngsters coming through," explained Hamilton.

The sport's only Black driver hailed increasingly outspoken four-times F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel as well as the younger drivers.: "I'm really proud of this next generation coming along, but we can still encourage them to be more invested and more understanding.

"When you're young, all you're thinking about is winning. You don't have time for a lot of these other things. Well, you think you don't, but you actually do. And that's what we've got to get across.

"From my experience as a driver, there's definitely the experience of, 'my team won't want me to say that' or 'I can't be outspoken because the team won't like that' or 'the sponsors won't like that'. I hope that breaking some of these invisible rules that are there has shown the others that they can do those things.

"I don't mind being the one to break them, and yeah it's great to see Seb really coming out on his own. As two of the older drivers I hope that does encourage some of the younger drivers.

"I'm speaking with Mick [Schumacher], whose such a lovely lad and he's saying things like, 'I don't know everything, is there any way you can educate me?' And same with Lando [Norris]. So I'm really proud of this next generation coming along, but we can still encourage them to be more invested and more understanding.

"When you're young, all you're thinking about is winning - you don't have time for a lot of these other things. Well, you think you don't, but you actually do. And that's what we've got to get across."

"Naturally I've definitely had moments… people don't see but it's not all beautiful. I'm only human and it's all relative. You have up and down days, I have really difficult days where I don't want to train, you don't want to continue to push, all these different thoughts that people have, I experience those too," explained Hamilton.