Lewis Hamilton says he no longer has any jokers left to play this season after suffering a third defeat to team-mate Nico Rosberg.
Poor starts in the opening two races and a series of technical issues ahead of Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix have limited Hamilton's point scoring in the opening three rounds and he is now 36 points behind Rosberg with 18 races remaining. It is the biggest lead Rosberg has had over Hamilton since he was 29 points clear following the 2014 Belgian Grand Prix, but Hamilton managed to recover that gap in just seven races to be crowned world champion.
"It doesn't feel any nicer than it did back then," Hamilton said, "if anything it probably feels worse. Perhaps now because it has just gone one negative after another but of course there is a long, long way to go. Lots can happen, it's just I have no more jokers available really.
"My start was good, I was dead last and had a good start finally! Trust it to happen when I'm dead last so that's something positive to take into the next race and hopefully utilise and use to my advantage from now on."
But Hamilton remains upbeat and still believes he has the raw pace to beat Rosberg.
"No as I am just talking right now, I definitely don't feel the dark cloud that I've had in the past. Of course it's a trying time and for sure there are lots of different emotions and thoughts are going through my mind as you see the season starting the wrong way, you see the championship, which is your goal, moving further away from you as you are approaching it, but this is a part of motor racing and a part of the journey and through these experiences, not only myself but my mechanics, my engineers, it brings us closer, it makes us stronger.
"As I said I got a good start, great overtaking -- I can still overtake, so there are lots of positives to take from today and ultimately I wasn't able to show my true ability or all of my ability in terms of pure pace because I had a damaged car but that was the same with the last race as well. But we go away, we'll come back. We fell this weekend, we'll get up and try harder next time."