Mercedes duo believe Bahrain one-two wasn't solely down to luck

Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas have insisted the one-two finish for Mercedes in Bahrain last weekend wasn't solely based on a lucky finish for the world champions.

Hamilton won the race, with his team-mate finishing a place behind in Bahrain, with Charles Leclerc's Ferrari having a problem with its power unit - meaning the Monegasque driver was unable to record his first ever grand prix win.

But both Hamilton and Bottas have insisted there was a lot more skill required  in their second consecutive one-two finish of the Formula 1 season.

"At the end of the race, we got lucky but it's not only luck," Bottas insisted following his second-place finish. "We (had) a more reliable car than Ferrari and that is down to very solid and hard work again by the team.

"Reliability is one of the key elements to win a title and we had proper reliability which got us more points than Ferrari."

Hamilton echoed his team-mates' thoughts: "I don't really know about luck," Hamilton said, when asked about Leclerc's race-losing problem. "Someone else's misfortune - is that luck for you? I don't know if that's true.

"It's a (fortunate) situation but he was just unlucky, they were just unlucky with whatever issues they had on their car. We've come out with maximum points, we've both ended up first and second.

"You could say that's lucky but I don't like using the word 'luck', I don't think they've done something and they don't deserve it this weekend and the same the other ways."

Hamilton continued to reveal he doesn't consider winning races in fortunate situations as payback for any previous misfortunes of his own: "I'm not superstitious so I don't come here thinking this is a reward for some past experience.

"I do think about karma, more in a negative, do to those as you want to be done to you kind of thing. But otherwise, I don't take it really into account in terms of racing. I want my team to be as clean and as straight as possible and we want to win on merit and that's how I drive. I don't bash my way through, I try to do things the right way."