Sebastian Vettel has admitted that nothing less than victory in the final four races will do if he is to beat the Brawn drivers to the world championship.
His Red Bull team's miserable Monza weekend - coupled with Brawn's one-two finish - dropped Vettel 26 points behind Jenson Button with only four races to go, which means he can be knocked out of mathematical contention in Singapore if the Briton out-scores him by four points or more.
But while Vettel's team owner Dietrich Mateschitz was highly pessimistic about Red Bull's title chances when interviewed by the Austrian press earlier this week, the young German says he is not ready to throw in the towel yet, despite the Italian Grand Prix results.
"In the end we were lucky to take one point," Vettel told the official Formula 1 website.
"But looking at the result, with the Brawns on top, it was a bad weekend for us.
"So we are looking forward to Singapore as the target there will clearly be to win, as it is the target at all remaining races.
"Scoring the maximum points is the target, and regarding the championship, we will see what that means."
He said his only hope is to go flat-out for victory in Singapore and beyond, as simply out-scoring Button in the minor points will no longer be enough.
"From now on our target has to be to win," said Vettel.
"We will see every race separately, and in the end we will count the points and will see whether it is enough or not.
"It’s true the gap is quite big - 26 points says it all - and it will be very difficult to catch up, but be sure we will try.
"I will fight to the last breath and minute."
Vettel added that Red Bull would be bringing updates to Singapore, but did not expect anything that would vault the squad back to the dominance it showed in June and July.
"We are still pushing and putting new parts on the car," he said.
"In Singapore we will get an update, a modification or a new front wing and a little body work.
"To be fair I don’t think that any of the teams will stop putting new elements on their cars.
"There is still too much to be gained from good results."