You can't win and lose as many races as Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel have without coming to know victory and defeat intimately.
The seasoned general instinctively recognises the significance of every battle, and just as Hamilton's Singapore Grand Prix victory in 2017 was the decisive one in last year's Formula 1 war, so it is again this time around.
Hamilton should now win his fifth world championship. Note the word 'should' not 'will' - for a freak accident, unreliability or unexpected set of circumstances could yet turn the tide. But, right now, every significant factor is on the side of Hamilton.