Sakhir (Bahrain), March 16 : In pursuit of a record eighth drivers' World Championship, seven-time Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton warned his rivals ahead of 2022 season kick-off in Bahrain, saying he is as 'dangerous' as he has ever been. Hamilton will be seeking to regain the World Championship in 2022 after narrowly losing out to rival Max Verstappen in a tense finale in Abu Dhabi last year. Speaking in a video uploaded on Mercedes' Twitter page, Hamilton was asked whether he believed that improvements he'd made to his pre-season preparations made him a more "dangerous" driver than he had ever been, to which he replied: "I would say so." "Naturally, your body does age, you do fatigue as you get older, it is a slower recovery. But I wouldn't necessarily say I'm too down in the slope; I still feel like I relatively at the top," he added. Hamilton, who enters his 16th season in Formula 1 this year, also explained what had improved in his preparation over the years, while sharing details about his strong partnership with Mercedes. "I feel I am more efficient in how I train," said Hamilton. "I'm much more in tune with my body in terms of knowing when I can push and when I can't push, when I am recovered and when I am not, how I am feeding my body in terms of fuelling it. I am way more into that than ever before, sleep, all these sorts of things. "I've got all the experience over the years; I've got the great rapport of my team. We've been together 10 years so I think we probably have the strongest partnership I would say." Hamilton also shared insights into his preparation before a race and why - unlike some other drivers - he prefers to stay calm before the lights go out. "I've just personally found - it's not the same for everyone, but for me it's just about being as calm as I can be," Hamilton told to formula1.com. "It's calming the nerves, calming your thoughts, slowing it all down so that you can execute smoothly and efficiently. "I don't need to be doing sprints before I go out. I've tried all that stuff and it didn't work for me. It just made me hot-headed, and I overacted to certain things that I was experiencing." "Just before the race I've usually got some music in my mind that I've been listening too. I kind of switch off. I've being doing this for such a long time, I don't need to overthink what I'm going to do. I've done all the studying and the preparation for it, now I will go and do what I do, what I've done my whole life, just go and have fun," he added. /IANS