Strategy will be the name of the game for Lewis Hamilton at this weekend's French Grand Prix.
Hamilton will start the race at Magny-Cours with the handicap of a 10-place grid penalty following his gaffe in Canada 10 days ago.
The 23-year-old crashed his McLaren into the back of the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen at 30mph in the Montreal pit lane after failing to spot a red light, just a fortnight after his stunning win in Monaco.
The penalty from the stewards means even if Hamilton sets the fastest time in qualifying on Saturday, he will still start outside the top 10 for the first time in his Formula One career.
Hamilton, though, has already insisted he can win from the middle of the pack, even on a track not the easiest on which to pass.
But he knows it will be down to the McLaren strategists to help propel him up the field, as well as his own talent.
"Mentally, it (the penalty) is something you learn to overcome quickly, so it certainly won't affect my preparations for the race," said Hamilton.
"We've already looked at the best ways of optimising the strategy to help us move up the field, and I guess I'll just have to pass some cars if I want to get into the points."
Acknowledging the difficult layout of the Circuit de Nevers, he added: "Magny-Cours isn't the easiest place to overtake, but it's certainly possible.
"You can dive down the inside into the Adelaide Hairpin, and also have a look into the penultimate corner.
"But an area we can really focus on is the strategy. Magny-Cours has a relatively short pitlane which does open up the strategic options available to us in the race."
The pit lane allows for fast stops as it has been known for teams to run a four-stop strategy in the past.
With McLaren at least in form of late in terms of speed, prior to Hamilton's bizarre shunt, the Briton is confident he can still bag a significant number of points.
Trailing new title leader Robert Kubica in his BMW Sauber by four points, Hamilton remarked: "Although the result in Canada may have been disappointing, our overall pace was a great boost for the whole team.
"Last year we lacked a little bit of pace in high-speed corners, but this year's car definitely seems to have overcome those shortcomings. We are in good shape."
Hamilton's words are echoed by McLaren F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh who said: "Traditionally, we've always gone well at Monaco, and we've recently enjoyed strong pace in Canada, so we remain encouraged by our performance.
"We feel like we've made substantial improvements to the car and, while it didn't exactly pay off in Canada, we go into France in a very positive frame of mind.
"One of the aims of our winter development programme was to improve the car's high-speed performance, and we feel we've been able to do that.
"Both Magny-Cours and Silverstone (for the British Grand Prix) will give us the opportunities to demonstrate that."
It is why Whitmarsh feels Hamilton can shrug off the penalty and propel himself into the reckoning in France.
"We go to France knowing we only have the capability to field one car on the optimum strategy, so our job will be a little different from normal," added Whitmarsh.
"But we still expect to extract the very maximum performance levels from both cars.
"Both Lewis and Heikki (Kovalainen) are very confident about their chances.
"We will be working hard with the strategists and engineers in order to provide them both with the optimum strategy for the race."
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