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2 Kimi Raikkonen
3 Felipe Massa

Hamilton: It was a shocking start

Sunday 18th March 2012

Hamilton: It was a shocking start

Hamilton: It was a shocking start

Lewis Hamilton has lamented his poor start at the Australian Grand Prix after he could only manage a P3 in the season-opening race.

The McLaren driver was on pole position, but he found himself P2 at the first corner after team-mate Jenson Button was quicker out of the blocks.

He never recovered and to add insult to injury, he slipped to third place behind Sebastian Vettel after McLaren pitted him just before the deployment of the Safety Car on lap 39.

Hamilton, though, knows his problems were down to his slow start and admits he's yet to find out why he couldn't make a clean getaway.

"It was a shocking start. I'm not sure what happened. I let out the clutch and got a lot of wheel spin. That followed all way through the launch phase. We lost a lot of ground from there," he said.

"It was impossible to overtake so I focused on keeping my spot and the Safety Car didn't help us. [Were you in the wrong place at the wrong time?] I'm often like that. It's still a great job by Jenson. Clearly we're very quick so we go forward to the next race in good shape."

Related Links
Button wins the Australian Grand Prix

Pics: Relive The Oz GP With Our Pics

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