Hamilton says he let McLaren down

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By Pablo Elizalde    Sunday, April 6th 2008, 15:29 GMT

Lewis Hamilton in BahrainLewis Hamilton apologised to his McLaren team for letting them down after what the Briton said it was a disastrous Bahrain Grand Prix.

Hamilton, starting from fourth place, went on to finish in 13th position after a dismal opening lap.

The McLaren driver lost several places at the start after his anti-stall system kicked in following a mistake on his part.

"The anti-stall kicked in. Basically I hadn't hit the switch early enough, and therefore we weren't in the launch map, and then it went straight into anti-stall. Everyone else was then in their launch mode, and I wasn't," he explained.

When trying to recover, the Briton crashed into the back of Fernando Alonso, losing his front wing.

Hamilton felt he had let his team down, but vowed to move on and bounce back in the next race.

"It was a disaster," Hamilton said after the race. "It was a very poor performance and I sort of let the team down today. It sort of went bad from the beginning, but I'll keep my chin up and move on and bounce back in the next race."

He added: "As a professional if you start off bad you need to sort of pick the pieces up and still deliver at least some points. I did none of that for the team.

"I had the crash with Fernando which really lost us the race altogether. I'm always the first to blame myself and I feel that's the right way to go."

Hamilton also played down suggestions that Alonso had brake-tested him when the two made contact.

"I have no idea. I was behind him I went to move to the right and he went to move to the right as well and I ended up on the back somehow. It's racing," he said.

The British driver dropped from first to third in the standings, just like his McLaren team, who are now behind BMW and Ferrari.

Hamilton, however, admitted he was not worried about the situation, as he reckons the team still have the pace to fight for wins.

"It's not a huge concern for me, to be honest," he added. "I think we've got the pace, and I know in the next race we will be quite a bit quicker than we were here this weekend. So the confidence is still there.

"It was inevitable that this was going to happen eventually. I had such a good run in Formula One and this is all part of it. But there's still a long way to go. Don't count me out just yet."

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Front wing failure likely cause of Hamilton-Alonso crash

McLaren have confirmed that Lewis Hamilton?s front wing broke immediately prior to his running into the rear of Fernando Alonso?s Renault on lap two of Sunday?s Bahrain Grand Prix.

The unusual nature of the accident - both drivers were accelerating on a straight section of track - prompted cynics to question whether Alonso had ?brake tested? his former team mate. Renault?s telemetry suggested otherwise, and McLaren say they have no suspicion of any wrongdoing on the part of the Spaniard.

?When I went into the engineers? room and started looking at the details that I realised Lewis?s upper front wing had disappeared about two seconds before the accident, so he suddenly lost downforce,? explained McLaren?s Formula One CEO, Martin Whitmarsh.

?We haven?t analysed why that happened but we suspect the structure had been weakened by previous contact. To be fair to Lewis it could have broken of its own accord, but that has never happened before so contact is the most likely cause. There?s certainly no evidence that Fernando did anything wrong.?

Such a failure would have robbed Hamilton?s car of not only downforce, but also drag, giving it an unexpected burst of acceleration, explaining the unlikely impact.