Hamilton forced to limit damage... again.

For the second time this year, Lewis Hamilton found himself in damage limitation mode after another difficult launch off the grid.

Rosberg aced the start when the lights went green, leaving his team mate in his wake, but when Hamilton turned into the first corner he collided was a tad over-zealous Valterri Bottas and his Williams.

The contact resulted in a damaged floor on the Mercedes but the reigning world champion put his head down and drove around the problem to the best of his ability.

"Obviously I lost a lot of performance in the car," Hamilton explained, after reaching the checkered flag 20 seconds behind second-placed man Kimi Raikkonen.

"I had so much damage on the car I couldn't keep up with Kimi. I did what I could with it, I was trying to keep the tyres.

"I am not sure what happened at Turn 1, whoever was on inside was in my blind spot, I didn't see them, but it was a racing incident. We could keep going, and I managed to continue and still had some performance in the car."

Thereafter, It was all about limiting the collateral damage for the Mercedes driver  who once again made life difficult for himself following a relatively poor start.

"I don't know what happened at the start, but I don't think there was any particular issue. I had a good getaway by myself."

Despite two botched starts in the first two races of the season, Hamilton saw no cause for real concern and no correlation between what happened in Melbourne and the incident in Bahrain.

"Two separate incidents, both equally painful, although today was maybe more so," he said.

"Nevertheless, we still managed to get back up there and at least get some points so, again, damage limitation.

"Congratulations to Nico - it was an easy race for him, I would assume, but I'm glad it wasn't more points if I couldn't have finished the race."

RACE REPORT: Rosberg beats Raikkonen to win in Bahrain

AS IT HAPPENED: Bahrain Grand Prix

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