Hamilton says start is biggest concern for Hungarian Grand Prix

Having delivered a brilliant pole position to edge out Romain Grosjean by four tenths of a second, Hamilton is well aware that he still faces a tough battle to overcome his rivals on Sunday.

Talking about his chances for the race, Hamilton said: "I think if you were to line up the cars and draw a line on a graph of how long each of those cars could go, I definitely do not believe that our car can go the longest on a stint. But we can still be strong in the length we can go, and it is longer than what we had previously had, as Jenson [Button] showed in the last race.

"We had the race pace in the last race, so we should have it now as well. Then it is down to good strategy, good pit stops and making the tyres last when we need them to, and make sure we attack when we need to.

"That is what we have done all year but every time you come to a race you want to do it better than you did at the race before.

"For me, if there is any concern, it is only the start - I want to make sure that I get a good start because there are a few starts where I have not got off the line and lost ground. So the target is to get a good start. From there you can have a positive race."

Hamilton said that he was not surprised to have returned to pace-setting form in Hungary, on the back of a productive weekend in exploiting the new update package from McLaren.

"I just hooked up lots of good laps from the beginning of this weekend. I dialled in the set-up I wanted on the simulator, and when we came here we had to adjust a few things to make the set-up right, but after that I have been very, very comfortable in the car."