British Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton has arrived in Spain wondering whether he may require the Hubble Space Telescope to locate Nico Rosberg's precise location at the top of the

world drivers’ championship.

After only four races Rosberg is 43 points ahead of his Mercedes team-mate and three-times world champion. No one has made up such a deficit, though it should be remembered the points system was inflated in 2010 and there are 17 races remaining in this, the longest of all F1 seasons.

There was no suggestion there might be a change in the balance of power here on Friday. In the first practice run Rosberg was third fastest behind the Ferraris of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen, with Hamilton a further 0.157sec behind.

And in the second run in the afternoon, when Mercedes switched from medium tyres to soft, it was Rosberg who finished at the summit of the timesheets, with Hamilton third behind Raikkonen.

Losing streak

The tortoise has so thoroughly outperformed the hare that there are some in the sport who believe the German’s momentum is unstoppable. Hamilton, who has not won a race for seven months, is discovering that a losing habit is much like a winning one, just more difficult to break.

When asked here whether this was the weekend when he would “hit the reset button”, Hamilton shrugged. “That’s the hope of course. Who knows? We’ll wait and see.”

He was chipper and positive after his setbacks in Australia, Bahrain and China. But there was a certain resignation, even forlornness, in his body language in Russia, and it hasn’t changed much since.

His critics carp that while he remains competitive he has lost the keen edge of his focus after back-to-back titles.

Poor starts from pole position in the first two races (in which he was second and third) have been compounded by technical issues in China and Russia (where he was seventh and second).

He has resisted any temptation to blame his mechanics. “They’ve been doing a fantastic job both for Nico and I over the last three and a half years,” he said. “I’m really just hoping that I’ve had a bad share of luck with the failures.”

But Barcelona is not one of his favourite circuits. Apart from a win in 2014, his adventures here have been dogged by failure and ill-fortune, though he will have happy memories of his first experience in 2007 when, in coming second to Felipe Massa, he became the youngest driver to lead the world championship.

Hamilton is painfully aware of how difficult it is to overtake here. And the buoyant Rosberg is unlikely to cede him anything; if there is a coming-together, with both cars forced to retire from the race, the latter will be the only winner.

Jenson Button has no doubts about his former team-mate’s capabilities.

“Lewis has had a lot of unreliability issues, which is unfortunate,” Button said.

“But it’s definitely possible for him to win the championship.”

So it is. But there is an urgent need to start the fightback this weekend. Guardian Service