Lewis Hamilton says he has no interest in staying in F1 if he is unable to fight for titles.
Hamilton is in the running for his fourth world title this year after achieving his goal of matching the championship tally of his boyhood hero Ayrton Senna last year. He is currently racing for the dominant Mercedes team and says he has no interest in just making up the numbers in the future if he finds himself in an uncompetitive team.
"The goal in racing is to excel in every opportunity that I have," he said. "I still want to win championships, I still want to win races, I don't know why I still have the drive to do those things because I've had quite a few of them, but that's what I love doing so I will continue to do it while I love it and not just to be in it, I want to win it. "I'm not here to just participate, I never have, never will be.
Hamilton has devoted more time to projects outside F1 in recent years and says he is starting to think about what he will do with his life once his racing career is over.
"In the other areas I just want try as many different things as I can. There's so much that I want to do and there's not enough time, for sure I love spending time doing my music, I love spending time with family and friends, I love the fashion stuff, I love kids so I really want to work more with kids, I want to work more with helping animals.
"It's so inhumane some of the things that are done to animals and also to human beings, trafficking, there's so many things that I want to get involved in and so hopefully I will have time in my life to become a part of as many as possible and by the time my time comes up in my life I can look back and say I've actually achieved a lot in terms of racing but also in other areas.
"At the moment I'm discovering that there is no rush, it's not like when you are leaving school and you have to figure out what you want your career to be, I'm discovering it as I go along."