Planet-F1

Lewis: I messed up at the start

Sunday 6th April 2008

Lewis Hamilton says he will "keep his chin up" after a disappointing performance at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

The McLaren driver finished 13th at the Sakhir circuit after he crashed into the back of Renault's Fernando Alonso on lap two.

And, to make matters worse, he dropped to third in the Championship standings after his main two rivals, Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen, picked up 10 and eight points respectively.

Hamilton admits it has been a disappointing race weekend, but he promises he won't get too downbeat.

"I am really disappointed and feel like I let the team down today as I always am the first to blame myself."

"The whole weekend has not been ideal starting with the accident on Friday, but I will keep my chin up and bounce back at the next race.

"I messed up at the start as I didn't hit the switch early enough and therefore had not engaged the correct engine setting, and the anti stall kicked in.

"I lost a lot of places but things were still salvageable at that point. Then I had the incident with Fernando. I was behind him, and I moved to the right, and he moved to the right and that was it - a racing incident I guess.

"I am confident that we have the pace to be fighting at the front so the confidence is still there. I have had such a good run in Formula 1 until now, and it was almost inevitable that at some point things would go wrong. However there is a long way to go in the Championship and I intend to win it."