For the Briton the equation is easy: win the race with teammate Nico Rosberg in second and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel in third and his second consecutive title at Mercedes will be put beyond doubt.
Hamilton’s driving has been sublime this season, free from much of the overdriving and critical mistakes that forced the 2014 championship to the wire at the final round in Abu Dhabi.
But the confidence Hamilton won alongside that championship – long overdue in the eyes of many considering his first came six years earlier, in 2008 – has had him easily see off his only realistic challenger, teammate Rosberg, with ease this season.
There has been much soul-searching taking place in the Rosberg camp this year as to why his hard work and infinite improvements to his style have not paid off.
Last season Rosberg was unbeatable in qualifying but flawed during races, yet this season he has owned neither. Often his qualifying performances have been lacklustre and his race performances have rarely been a match for his champion-to-be teammate.
The German has also had more than his fair share of reliability issues at critical junctures. He trailed Hamilton by just 21 points – less than a race win – at the mid-season break, but an engine failure at the Italian Grand Prix and a throttle problem in Russia blew out the margin to its current 73 points, and third in the standings behind Vettel.
“It’s disappointing to see how this year has gone,” reflected Rosberg after the Russian Grand Prix. “A lot of bad luck in the last couple of months just when I needed to launch an attack, one thing after another.
“Small things also, major things, race stoppers just derailed it in the last months and that has been tough.”
Even with these mitigating circumstances, however, the statistics are unflattering – it took Rosberg five races to score his first win, giving Hamilton a three-victory head start, and Hamilton has so far taken nine wins to Rosberg’s three. Reliability problems or not, Rosberg’s performances have underwhelmed.
It would hardly be the first time that a hard-fought one-on-one battle gave way to a one-sided follow-up year. Indeed, 2015 merely follows the pattern set down by the 2011 season in which Sebastian Vettel, having snatched the previous year’s crown in one of the closest title fights in the sport’s history, dominated his competitors.
“I led the championship for a huge part of 2010 before Seb got on a roll at the back end,” Mark Webber, Vettel’s teammate in the German’s title years, told the BBC.
“That’s why the first world championship is very important. My weakest year was the year after, and Nico is going through that now.”
The runner-up hangover has been fierce, and it has prevented Rosberg from upsetting the serene Hamilton for the balance of the season.
But Rosberg will have even less off-season reflection time this season than last – Ferrari is threatening to be a contender in 2016, meaning two more championship-winning drivers with whom to contend.
“It’s not like tennis or golf where you can miss a tournament and go hug your teddy,” noted Webber. “You’ve got to keep pressing on.
“This winter will be big for Nico.”
But before we can hope for a closer championship in 2016, focus must be turned to Austin on Sunday (Oct 25), when Hamilton will almost certainly do what he set out to achieve when he started in the sport – emulate idol Ayrton Senna’s three championships and mark himself out amongst the greats of the sport.
With a season as flawless as this, it’s hard to argue against his case.