If Rosberg wins, I'll take it like a man - Hamilton

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Ahead of what could prove to be a crucial weekend for him in terms of retaining his world championship, Lewis Hamilton has promised to "take it like a man" if Nico Rosberg beats him to the title in 2016.

"You can’t win them all. Look at all the world champions in the past who have won and lost championships, it is part of the game," he said on Thursday.

"I will try to take it like a man.

"There are four races but hopefully I’ve got more seasons left in my career for better days. I am aware you can’t always have great races as it is a long season.

"Nobody is perfect. All I can do is work hard with the team and there is no reason why we cannot have more positive weekends to look forward to."

This year Hamilton's campaign was thwarted by a number fo technical issues in the first part of the season, and more recently by the heart-breaking retirement in Malaysia after his engine failed while he was leading the race.

"I don’t look back as there is very little point in it, so I am looking forward," he insisted.

"If you look at all things we were always having close battles. If all things were equal in what our scenarios are there would be a certain result. This year it has been different in terms of our performances have been, particularly mechanically, and there is nothing I can do about that.

"Out of the ten times the car has been good I have often done the job but then there definitely has been a few where in the first few seconds of the race it has not gone that well. That is motor racing.

He has also suffered problems with getting good starts when the lights go out, and admitted that there had to be an improvement in that area in future.

"It has been an ongoing thing all year long and there have been a lot of changes and a lot of work, perhaps more in other areas.

"I was at the factory last week and we were working very hard to cover off all areas so we hope to have a better formula this weekend. I definitely feel we are in a better position to fingers crossed for something."

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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.