Hamilton calm ahead of Abu Dhabi

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Lewis Hamilton is planning to "have a good laugh" in Sunday's final grand prix of the year in Abu Dhabi in order to end the season with a smile on his face.

Hamilton is not belittling his championship chances, even though he is a 100-1 outsider in light of the fact he is 24 points adrift of leader Fernando Alonso.

But given Hamilton needs a victory at the Yas Marina circuit, have Alonso finish outside the points, Mark Webber no higher than sixth and Sebastian Vettel no higher than third, it is no wonder he has already stated he needs "a miracle."

Assessing his situation, Hamilton said: "I'm the most relaxed I've ever been going into a final race when I've been in contention of the championship, which is three years out of four, fighting right up until the last grand prix.

"I'm quite a long way behind, and it is going to be very tough, but we can still have a good laugh, which is why I'm so relaxed because we have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

"It was like Jenson (Button) recently said, we can have some fun now, so it won't be a disappointing thing if we don't win, but we will be really happy if we do.

"Looking back it's been an incredibly long year, but it's a really nice feeling to be here going all out, thinking 'let's rock it and see what we can get out of it'.

You can sense, though, Hamilton is pretty much resigned to his fate as he added: "I'm still kind of fighting for the championship, with a still relatively small chance of winning it.

"We have given it our all this year and that's all we could really hope for.

"The others guys (Red Bull and Ferrari) have generally done a slightly better job, so now we're looking forward to next year.

"So I am just happy to be here, and it is kind of cool to still be in the mix, just on the edge."