Hamilton has lost pole advantage five times from seven in 2016; Rosberg warns of Red Bull challenge to Mercedes in Singapore
Monday 19 September 2016 14:28, UK
Lewis Hamilton fears his world title bid could be scuppered by poor starts, with the Mercedes driver expecting to experience more problematic getaways before the season is over.
Hamilton has claimed more pole positions, seven, than any driver this season, but has converted them into a lap-one race lead just twice.
His pole-win conversion rate this season stands at 43 per cent, compared to a pre-2016 career average of 51 per cent. Team-mate and title rival Nico Rosberg has also experienced some slow getaways at the lights, but he has converted pole into a race win 66 per cent of the time.
F1's start rules were tightened for 2016 in a bid to ensure more varied getaways through the field. Drivers are now unable to be given guidance over the radio after they leave the pits to go to the grid on Sunday, and only one single clutch may be used on the grid.
And after seeing another potential victory slip through his fingers from pole within seconds of the lights going out at the last race in Monza, Hamilton replied when asked if he welcomed the increased variability: "Not really, because if you gauge my season then the championship could be lost through starts.
"Considering I've got a lot of pole positions I've lost the race from the start [several times]. You do all the work during the weekend and then two seconds, or whatever it is, has determined some of the races."
Hamilton explained what went wrong at Monza, when he slumped to sixth by the first corner, and admitted it probably will not be the last time in 2016 due to the increased variables at the start of races.
"It wasn't a settings thing, it wasn't too hot, it's just that the clutch gave more torque because it wanted to," the world champion told Sky Sports F1.
"There's no other way to put it, sometimes it gives you more torque sometimes it gives you less. No, it will happen again, sometime in the next seven races. Hopefully it doesn't, but it is likely to happen again."
Although the Briton recovered to second place in Italy, Rosberg's second victory in a row means the pair are separated by just two points in the championship heading into this weekend's Singapore GP.
Mercedes have won all but one of this season's opening 14 races but a victory in the city-state may prove elusive, especially considering the 2015 car's mystifying lack of performance when both cars were well off the pace at Marina Bay.
Rosberg has conceded that while he is confident last year's Singapore slump won't be repeated, the size of the 2015 gap to Ferrari and Red Bull means Mercedes have a mountain to climb this weekend.
"Last year we were one second off the pace in qualifying and this year we haven't really revolutionised anything," he added. "We understand why we were off the pace so we've done some changes but is it enough to make up one second per lap? That's a difficult one."
Having seen Daniel Ricciardo secure pole and narrowly miss out on victory at a somewhat similar street circuit in Monaco earlier this season, Rosberg has highlighted the threat of Red Bull.
"Every track is different and you need to build one car which averages out the best over all of them. But if another team specialises more on certain tracks they can beat us on a couple - and then be really bad on tracks like Monza.
"Red Bull are the best example for that. In Monza they were nowhere, whereas we're just always good everywhere. They specialise on high downforce tracks like Monaco and it's the same here; they're going to be very quick."
