Hamilton not dwelling on Malaysia blow

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Lewis Hamilton says he has quickly moved on from the disappointment of his retirement in the Malaysian Grand Prix ahead of this weekend's race in Japan.

Mercedes has taken action after Hamilton retired from the lead of Sunday's race, costing him victory and dropping him 23 points behind team-mate Nico Rosberg in the drivers' championship. Having already arrived at Suzuka ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix, Hamilton says he is not dwelling on the lost points at Sepang.

"I feel the same as last year I feel pretty good and ready to get on track," Hamilton said. "The weather is good and I love being here.

"I’ve not been thinking about the last race usually when I leave a race I think about a lot of other things going on. I was in Tokyo enjoying my time, it is one of my three favourite cities in the world. [In Sepang the performance] was good, I was happy with it and hope I can continue like that here."

Having referenced his belief that "a higher power" could be having an influence on his title race, when asked how important religion is to him, Hamilton replied: "It doesn’t change, nothing has changed.

"It appears currently the guy above doesn’t really want me to win right now but I have made a point on my Instagram so I don’t really have much more to say about it."

And Hamilton also pointed to further Instagram posts when asked for his thoughts on fan accusations of unfavourable treatment of the two drivers by Mercedes.

"You can go on my Instagram, I’ve put all my feelings on there. They [fans] have the right to their own opinions but as you’ve seen from my post you see how passionate I am about this team and my guys."

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.