Lewis Hamilton says he knows he is quick enough to beat teammate Nico Rosberg this year despite a series of setbacks in the opening four races.
Hamilton has not won a race since he clinched his third drivers' title in Austin last year and is already 43 points behind Rosberg in the drivers' standings this season. His campaign has been blighted by poor starts in the opening two races and reliability issues in the last two races, which forced him to start from the back of the grid in China and from tenth in Russia.
Hamilton was able to battle back to second in Russia and was starting to reduce Rosberg's lead (see sidebar) when a water leak forced him to back off. Asked if that charge between laps 29 and 36 gave him confidence that he is still the quicker driver, Hamilton said he has not doubted himself all year.
"I've known that since day one so it doesn't change anything, but of course it's good to be reminded of it and see the pace that I did have," he said. "We did a fantastic job of getting the car where it needed to be this weekend and we were very strong with where we had the set-up, very happy but it was just another race where I couldn't fully exploit that so I come away from here."
Hamilton said he would try to turn the negatives from the opening rounds of the season in to positives.
"In terms of the work that we're doing and the processes they're doing, the glass is half full as there's still a long way to go and we can take this performance that we've had and, my group of guys, with the set-up and everything, there's no reason why we can fight for wins. There are 17 races to go and, if the last four are anything to go by, I'm sure there is more to come so we'll have to take it and try to twist it into positives."