Hamilton details numerous issues that hampered Bahrain GP

Lewis Hamilton has detailed the plethora of issues that prevented a charge from ninth on the grid at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

The Mercedes driver had sacrificed his qualifying pace for a race set-up but was able to finish only seventh after overcoming a number of gremlins across the 57-lap event at the Bahrain International Circuit.

Hamilton complained of a lack of battery power and a broken seat across the duration of the race, as well as being forced into car-cooling measured by his team.

"For a while my battery was dead, so down the straights I was just derating so I lost a lot of ground on the McLarens," the seven-time champion told media including RacingNews365.

"I was fixing that for some laps - that took a good 10 laps and then after that I was just really trying to get back on it and catch up once we got that fixed.

"Then there was a bit of overheating with the brakes, but generally the performance was so-so."

On his broken seat, Hamilton added: "My seat starting moving, my left side dropped and so it was moving through the braking zones."

'I don't feel downbeat'

Despite initially struggling, Hamilton was setting a competitive pace compared to those around him at the end of the race, albeit coming up short in the hunt for McLaren's Lando Norris.

"I was catching at the end and feeling racy," insisted Hamilton.

"But the gap was so big, I lost so much at the beginning of the race.

"I feel good, I don't feel downbeat. It was a super-average race.

"But what I feel is that the last couple of years, we have had all these problems and we have spent several races trying to undo all those problems, trying to figure out what those problems were as opposed to now, we have a platform that we can start adding bricks to.

"So now it is a building process from here and I think we're a great team."