Lewis Hamilton not carrying baggage after Abu Dhabi

Lewis Hamilton says he is not carrying «any baggage» into the new season after the controversial end to last year's championship fight.

The Mercedes driver begins his quest for a record eighth world title this weekend, as a report into last year's Abu Dhabi race is set to be published.

He said: «I don't hold any grudges. I don't have any baggage going into the season. It is important to let go.

»All I can do is try and shape what's ahead. I can't change the past."

Governing body the FIA is due to publish on Saturday its long-awaited report into the mistakes that were made in Abu Dhabi, when race director Michael Masi failed to apply the rules correctly in a late safety-car period and the destiny of the title shifted from Hamilton to Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

Hamilton said he had met with new FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem on Thursday in Bahrain amid calls from a number of drivers for the report to be fully transparent about what happened.

«It is important that as a sport we are transparent and I had a good meeting with Mohammed last night,» Hamilton said. «He agreed that's the direction we should take as a sport, so (I'm) looking forward to it coming out and for people to know the sport is transparent and we are learning from what happened in the past and are moving forwards.»

Hamilton's title rival Max Verstappen said he did not see the need for a full report to be published but he said: «It's good to discuss about happened in the year before. Right? You always analyse everything you do.

»So, yeah, we'll find out and if there's things that can be written down in an easier way, or a way to understand it better, the wording, then for sure."

Hamilton and team-mate George Russell are expecting a difficult start to the season,