Lewis Hamilton was today hailed as being in a league of his own by the boss of his world championship rival, Felipe Massa.

The extraordinary praise from Stefano Domenicali, head of the Ferrari Formula One team, is bound to sap the morale of Massa, who must make up a seven-point deficit if he is to beat Hamilton to the title in the final race of the season in Brazil a week on Sunday.

Domenicali's comments came in the wake of a commanding victory by Hamilton in the Chinese Grand Prix. Brazil's Massa finished a distant second with team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, of Finland, third. Hamilton was totally dominant in Shanghai, leading from pole position to the chequered flag in his McLaren Mercedes and setting the fastest lap in the process. Massa simply couldn't match him.

Applauding the performance of the 23-year-old, aiming to become the ninth Briton to claim the drivers' crown, Domenicali said: "Lewis was in another league.

"He was driving fast, consistent, and we couldn't even think of attacking him. What we said in our pre-race briefing was to try and attack Lewis above all at the beginning of the race, but we couldn't do it because he was so fast."

Last season, Hamilton went to the Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paulo holding a seven-point advantage over Raikkonen, but still lost a rookie championship by one point to his Ferrari rival after running wide off the track and suffering a gearbox glitch.

He believes he can hold out this time. "It will be a different situation to last year," he said.

"We'll be even more competitive than we were in China, so that's comforting."

As for his latest triumph, Hamilton added: "It is another step towards the championship, another step towards my dream."