04/04/2016
NEWS STORY
For the second time this season, Lewis Hamilton has snatched victory - well a podium - from the jaws of defeat. On both occasions, as was the case several times late last year, it was a poor getaway from the grid that led to his subsequent issues.
As Mercedes focusses on the issue which is causing the world champion to lose ground to his teammate, the Briton insists he is not overly concerned.
"It's not a big issue," he told reporters having finished third in Bahrain, his race compromised by a clash with Valtteri Bottas at the first corner and an overlong stint on the medium tyres.
"It is something we'll fix for the next race," he insisted.
Speaking of the Bottas incident, for which the Finn received a drive-through penalty, Hamilton admitted: "I am not quite sure what happened but whoever was on the inside was in my blind spot so I didn't see them. It was a racing incident and these kind of things happen.
"I lost a lot of performance from the car," he added. "But I just tried to get as many points as possible and I did the best I could with it."
Mercedes remains perplexed by Hamilton's obvious start issue, but is working on it.
"We tend to believe it is more a hardware issue than a control electronics problem," said Toto Wolff. "You can't solve that from one race to the other. We are working to sort it out. The way we assess clutches and the way we round them, the way we calibrate them. Obviously how the driver uses it needs to be optimised.
"But mainly the collaboration with Daimler is about optimising the hardware," he added. "That takes a little bit of time. When we will have results I am not sure yet."
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