Hamilton: Penalties make it 'very hard' to retain title lead

Lewis Hamilton believes "it will be very hard" for him to retain his championship lead at the Belgian Grand Prix as a result of power unit penalties.

Mercedes has opted to take Hamilton's power unit penalties at Spa-Francorchamps, coinciding with an upgraded engine for both drivers. At present Hamilton has a 30-place grid penalty after taking new power units for FP1 and FP2, with the chance of a further penalty on Saturday.

Asked if he can retain his lead in the championship as he currently has a 19-point buffer over team-mate Nico Rosberg, Hamilton replied: "For sure that’s the target, but whether or not I’ll be able to do that, it’ll be very hard to do that. There’s a long way to go in the season, so either way it doesn’t really matter."

In order for Rosberg to retake the lead, the German would need to win Sunday's race and Hamilton finish no higher than eighth place. Hamilton admits he has to take a different approach to this weekend in the knowledge he cannot qualify at the front.

"The approach is not the same, because normally you are dialling in the car with more front end to get around the track as fast as possible, as where now we are trying to get round for as long as possible.

"Today, I didn’t do any low fuel runs, I only did race fuel running the whole time and it will be the same tomorrow to try to get the most realistic and representative scenario for Sunday."

Pirelli dismisses driver complaints over tyre pressures

With a number of drivers complaining about high tyre pressures, Hamilton says the problem makes it even harder for him to recover through the field this weekend.

"I think everyone is suffering with blistering. I don’t have anything good to say about the tyres to be honest, so I’ll withdraw from that subject. We are just working on trying to look after the car and today the guys worked so hard to make the changes, and I hope that pays dividends later on for us.

"It’s so hot and the tyres are not lasting very long, so everyone has to do two or three stops or whatever it is. There is going to be very little I can do, it’s not like I can do a one stop and get through the crowd like the Force Indias and Ferraris have done at some stage.

"It’s really hard out there, and unfortunately this is not the best weekend for me to have all the penalties, but it is what it is and I didn’t have any engines left. I’ll just do the best job I can with it and hope for the best."

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Chris Medland's 2016 Belgian Grand Prix preview

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.