Hamilton: Uphill task

Mentally, it (the penalty) is something you learn to overcome quickly, so it certainly won't affect my preparations for the race.

Lewis Hamilton
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Lewis Hamilton admits he and McLaren will have to be tactically astute to overcome their 10-place grid penalty and win Sunday's French Grand Prix.

The McLaren racer has been docked 10 places at Magny-Cours after crashing into the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen at 30mph in the Montreal pit lane after failing to spot a red light.

The penalty from the stewards means even if Hamilton sets the fastest time in qualifying on Saturday, he will still start outside the top 10 for the first time in his Formula One career.

And even though Hamilton has already insisted he can win from the middle of the pack, he knows it will be down to the McLaren strategists to help propel him up the field, as well as his own talent.

Difficult

"Mentally, it (the penalty) is something you learn to overcome quickly, so it certainly won't affect my preparations for the race," said Hamilton.

"We've already looked at the best ways of optimising the strategy to help us move up the field, and I guess I'll just have to pass some cars if I want to get into the points."

Acknowledging the difficult layout of the Circuit de Nevers, he added: "Magny-Cours isn't the easiest place to overtake, but it's certainly possible.

"You can dive down the inside into the Adelaide Hairpin, and also have a look into the penultimate corner.

Bizarre

"But an area we can really focus on is the strategy. Magny-Cours has a relatively short pitlane which does open up the strategic options available to us in the race."

The pit lane allows for fast stops as it has been known for teams to run a four-stop strategy in the past.

With McLaren at least in form of late in terms of speed, prior to Hamilton's bizarre shunt, the Briton is confident he can still bag a significant number of points.

Trailing new title leader Robert Kubica in his BMW Sauber by four points, Hamilton remarked: "Although the result in Canada may have been disappointing, our overall pace was a great boost for the whole team.

"Last year we lacked a little bit of pace in high-speed corners, but this year's car definitely seems to have overcome those shortcomings. We are in good shape."