Hamilton hopes starts don't cost him title

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Lewis Hamilton hopes his poor starts this season do not prove crucial to the outcome of this year's drivers' championship.

While Hamilton has been on pole position on seven occasions so far this season, he has only converted those poles into victories three times. With the British Grand Prix starting behind the safety car, the championship leader has only led into Turn 1 on one occasion this year when starting from pole on the grid.

With the Italian Grand Prix seeing Hamilton finish second due to a poor start, he is worried he could lose this year's title due to his difficulties getting off the line.

“It’s pretty hard to start the races but it has been the same for years," Hamilton said. "It’s just more difficult now in terms of getting a consistent getaway because you’re not allowed to have certain feedback you were allowed before – in terms of clutch temperatures – so you don’t have that. Sometimes you arrive at it gives you not enough torque, sometimes it gives you too much torque and you’re none the wiser – you don’t know if it’s going to give you more or less.

"I’m sure the team can explain to you in Monza, but as I told you before I had too much torque than what was predicted.

"I don’t specifically like it or dislike it, it is what it is. But would I prefer my clutch not to have those inconsistencies – for sure I would, but that’s not going to change anytime soon.

"If you gauge my season, then the championship may be lost through bad starts, so considering I lost a lot of races I started from pole position right at the start. You do the work all through the weekend and then those two seconds have determined some of the races."

However, Hamilton is still upbeat despite team-mate Nico Rosberg winning the two races since the summer break.

"I still have a positive mind. I was 43 points behind at one stage, so I feel pretty good still and we are still leading the championship despite all the engine penalties I’ve had and not the greatest start in the last race. But the speed is there and I’m still in the lead, so I feel pretty good still."

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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.