Formula 1 news

Hamilton expecting to struggle at faster circuits

Lewis Hamilton is confident that the McLaren team is doing everything it can to finish in the points on a regular basis. The British driver, after clinching the world title last year, realises it won't be easy to start winning races for the team and in fact expects to struggle more at faster circuits.

Speaking about the car's recent form Hamilton said: "We knew the Spanish Grand Prix was going to be tough for our car, given the results of the test a couple of months ago. We're hoping that things improve greatly from this point onwards as Barcelona is one of the toughest circuits on the calendar for our car. Bahrain was always going to be one of our better races because we could exploit KERS and the car's handling through the slower corners.

"I think we can finish in the points regularly but we'll continue to struggle at some of the faster circuits. Hopefully we can introduce the necessary performance upgrades to make us competitive everywhere.

"The whole team is working as hard as it can to improve the car and we have some more upgrades coming for Monaco next week. I definitely think we can turn the corner with this car - I don't think the whole car is wrong, I think perhaps a small issue is triggering a bigger problem somewhere else; that's encouraging because it means we could hit a breakthrough at any stage. We've definitely taken some big steps forward and we've learnt from some of our mistakes too - we're all optimistic for the next few races.

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