Poor start 'not driver error,' insists Hamilton

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Lewis Hamilton has insisted that his poor start on Sunday that cost him a potential victory in the Italian Grand Prix was not down to a mistake on his part.

"I’m told it wasn’t a driver error but it was anyone’s error," he told reporters in Monza after the race.

"The procedure was done exactly as I was supposed to do it but unfortunately we had over-delivery of torque and the wheels were spinning from the get-go.

"We continue to have an inconsistency with our clutch. You saw it with Nico in Hockenheim, and it's bitten me quite a lot this year."

The issue left Hamilton running as low as sixth place having started on pole. While he was quickly able to make up positions by overtaking Williams' Valtteri Bottas and Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo, and then get ahead of both Ferraris on pit stop strategy, he was too far behind his Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg to challenge for the lead.

"I used so much of my tyres just to get back through the field and when they told me the gap was 15 seconds, the whole back straight, all he had to do was match some of my times and he was sorted.

"I could have kept going at the pace I was going and maybe I would have got the gap down to six, maybe, but it is still not enough to win the race.

"To close a 15 second gap, which means you are going to have to go three or fourth-tenths of a second per lap faster, you are not going to have any tyres left at the end of it.

"It is a big question, I might have or I might not have but if I did close the gap I wouldn’t have had the tyres to get past. If I'd been eight seconds behind I would have closed the gap and put some pressure on and been in a better position, but 15 seconds is a long way to come back with the tyres they are today.

"Nico drove a great race and was faultless doing what he had to do. Once you are out in front here it is relatively plain and simple keeping the car on track."

Despite this weekend's setback, Hamilton remains two points ahead of Rosberg in the battle for the world championship and certainly isn't about to give up.

"We’ve had so many things go against us on our side of the garage this year and still to have come back and be where we are is phenomenal. There are still lots of great things that can happen moving forward."

DRIVER RATINGS - 2016 Italian Grand Prix

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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.