World champion Sebastian Vettel laughed off persistent speculation about his future on Thursday, insisting it was far from his mind in the run-up to the Japanese Grand Prix.

The paddock rumour mill has linked Red Bull’s four-times defending champion with a switch to McLaren or Ferrari next year as speculation builds over the identity of the line-up for McLaren, to be powered by Honda.

It has been suggested that Honda will effectively buy out his contract but Vettel shrugged off the merry-go-round transfer talk as part and parcel of the sport, pointing to Britain’s Jenson Button as a prime example.

“I think there have always been rumours in the last couple of years, especially in this part of the season,” said the 27-year-old German.

“It (the driver market speculation) is probably more for Jenson. He has 17 (rumoured) teammates for next year – I was one a couple of weeks ago and maybe I will be next week again.

“It is not in my head,” Vettel added, as he looks to build on his encouraging second-place finish behind Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes in last month’s Singapore race – only this third podium of the year.

Once-mighty Red Bull have been outperformed by Mercedes in 2014, with Vettel slipping to a distant fifth in the drivers’ championship, a whopping 117 points behind leader Lewis Hamilton.

Vettel, who has won four of the past five races at Suzuka, was confident he had turned a corner after his best performance of the season in Singapore.

“It’s all the small bits coming together,” he said. “Obviously we hardly ran the first half of the season, we had lots of issues in winter to overcome and then a lot of issues on my side in the first half, which is never great.

“Now I think it’s coming our way – but there’s still huge potential which I feel we are getting closer (to) but there’s a lot of work ahead of us to make sure we extract it in the next couple of races as well.”

Central Japan is bracing itself for a typhoon this weekend, which could make conditions treacherous.

“I think the chances (of it hitting) are 50-50,” Vettel said.

“But there’s a chance to do well. This circuit suits me, suits our car so I think we should be a little bit closer this weekend again.”