MANAMA, April 6, 2008 (AFP) - British driver Lewis Hamilton blamed himself and said he had 'let down the team' after a finishing only 13th in Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix.

The 23-year-old McLaren driver, who almost won the drivers title as a rookie last year, made a poor start, collided with former team-mate and rival Fernando Alonso and failed to make an impact on the race.

It was his worst race to date in Formula One.

Brazilian Felipe Massa won the race ahead of defending drivers champion Finn Kimi Raikkonen in a dominant Ferrari one-two.

Hamilton said: "It was a very poor performance and I let the team down today. It went bad from the beginning.

"But I will keep my chin up and bounce back in the next race."

Hamilton, the first driver of Afro-Caribbean descent to race in Formula One, won the opening race of the season in Australia, but struggled in Malaysia.

He was leading the title race before Sunday's race, but is now trailing behind Raikkonen, having suffered lapses in concentration at critical moments throughout the weekend's action.

Asked about his collision with double world champion Spaniard Alsono, he said: "I have no idea. I was behind him, I went to move to the right, he went to the right and I ended up in the back of him somehow. It's racing."

Many observers believed Alonso appeared to slow down in his Renault to 'brake test' Hamilton. It seemed to be deliberate and possibly a hangover from their fallout last season when they were team-mates at McLaren.

But Hamilton avoided that issue and said also that he was not too worried by his car and his team's lack of pace.

He said: "No, it is not a huge concern for me to be honest. We have the pace, I know I have the pace and I know in the next race we will be quite a bit quicker than we have been here.

"The confidence is still there. It was inevitable that was going to happen because I have had such a good run in Formula One. And this is all part of it.

"But there is still a long way to go, don't count me out yet."

Asked how he felt he let his McLaren team down, he said: "As a professional. When you start off bad, you need to pick up the pieces and deliver points.

"I didn't do any of that for the team. I had the collision with Fernando which cost the whole race.

"I am always the first to blame it on myself. That's the right way to go."

Summing up his weekend and his race, Hamilton was blunt. "It was a disaster. It was as good as you saw it."

He explained his poor start. "The anti-stall kicked in. I hadn't hit the switch early enough so I wasn't in launch mode and I went straight to anti-stall.

"Everyone was in launch mode and I wasn't..It is a big, big disappointment. I am as disappointed as you could be, I suppose."