Lewis Hamilton moved a step closer to becoming Formula One world champion by winning the Chinese Grand Prix.

The McLaren driver extended his lead in the drivers championship to seven points, while his nearest rival Felipe Massa finished second.

Hamilton said: "This is another step to the championship and towards my dream and towards my team's dream.

"The team deserve it. We've worked really hard.

"Our approach to this race was right. It wasn't to go out and win everything in this race, it was to look at both races and score as many points collectively."

Hamilton is guaranteed to win the title for the first time if he finishes in the top five in the final Grand Prix of the season in Brazil.

But he must answer serious questions about his ability to finish the job because he had an identical lead going into the final race last season and he was pipped to the title by Kimi Raikkonen.

Hamilton added: "Going to Brazil, it will be a much different situation to last year.

"We will be a lot more competitive than we are here.

"So that's comforting. We know we've got to do a good job

"It will be tough, Massa and Raikonnen will be pushing us hard."

Massa overtook his Ferrari team-mate Raikkonen in the closing stages of the race to earn two extra points by finishing second.

Raikkonen said: "We know what we want as a team and that is what we did, it is normal in these situations.

"Unfortunately we were second and third but hopefully next race we can challenge him a bit more.

"We gave the best but it didn't work out."

Massa admitted Ferrari could not keep pace with Hamilton's McLaren.

He said: "I didn't have a good start. We just stayed in the same positions.

"Lewis was a bit stronger in the beginning, he just started pulling away and this make his race more comfortable.

"For us we were driving on the limit trying to reduce the gap but it was not possible.

"Lewis had a better car for the whole weekend."

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