Hamilton still gunning for victory in Chinese GP despite five-place grid penalty

The McLaren driver discovered that he would be hit with the penalty today after the team detected the problem "in the last 48 hours".

But while he insists that he will be satisfied with a finish on the podium, he has not given up on a win.

"We have still got a great chance to win," said Hamilton. "We have still got a quick car and we will try and put ourselves in the best position possible to have the right strategy and to be quick enough that we can still fight for the lead.

"But I would settle for a podium. I always say I want to move forward. That is the key."

Despite the penalty, Hamilton is determined to fight for pole position on Saturday even though it would only give him a place on the third row.

He believes that this would still give him a chance of climbing the order in the race, given the competitiveness of the McLaren.

"It doesn't change my approach; you still have to qualify as high up as possible," he said. "I won from third last year and I will just have to try and win from further back. I will have to try and get sixth if possible.

"We have got a quick car and hopefully with our upgrades we'll be quite competitive this weekend. We still have a fighting chance. I will try to minimise the damage by qualifying as strong as possible."

Hamilton added that despite underlining the need for consistency after taking back-to-back third places in Australia and Malaysia that he is not consciously taking a more cautious approach.

"I never plan to have those kinds of [inspirational] races and I never plan to have bad races," he said when asked about balancing up an aggressive approach with the need to finish. You can never plan for how races go.

"Every year I target to finish every race but sometimes it just doesn't go to plan. I got here on Sunday and am doing absolutely everything to make sure I'm prepared in the best way."