Hamilton confident Sochi struggles are behind him

The Briton struggled for pace during the Russian Grand Prix weekend and had to settle for a distant fourth position as teammate Valtteri Bottas went on to take his maiden F1 win.

Hamilton admitted after the race that he had no answers for his struggles, but said on Thursday that Mercedes now understood the reasons better, leaving him more optimistic for this weekend's Barcelona race.

"Coming into this weekend we have a good understanding of what went wrong," said Hamilton. "There has been analysis as there is race-to-race.

"We have grown from experience of having won with a fast car and a car that struggled in so many areas.

"I definitely think we are better equipped now but I can't say it will be better this weekend, I hope it will be. There will be upgrades for everybody and we will be doing work tomorrow to get the car in the right place."

The three-time champion said the problem was caused by several small details that led to him never managing to get his tyres working properly.

He added: "It was just a bunch of small things that all added up in one pot. Nothing in particular, not single one thing that was bigger than another.

"That just led us in slightly the wrong direction but should be better this weekend.

"It is a tyre issue. So, in the sense of the tyre window working range is quite small, so the whole weekend I was generally not in the right window with it."

Additional reporting by Jonathan Noble