World champion Lewis Hamilton will be doing everything he can to resolve the start problems that blunted his hopes in the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

Hamilton started from pole position but immediately found himself dropping as low as sixth place before fighting back to finish second.

The race went to Hamilton’s Mercedes team-mate, Nico Rosberg, who was untroubled at the start, and the pair are now separated in the drivers’ championship by just two points.

Both Mercedes drivers have suffered problems at the start this season and Hamilton says it is not down to driver error.

“I’m told it wasn’t driver error but it wasn’t anyone’s error,” said Hamilton. “We continue to have an inconsistency with our clutch.

“You saw it with Nico in Hockenheim and it’s happened to me quite a lot this year. Every now and again we get a drastic variation.

“It’s something we need to work on and it’s the only thing we will be talking about Tuesday. We’re not struggling with pole position, just getting off the line.”

Hamilton recovered to take second place and begin his pursuit of Rosberg but, with a 15-second gap to the German, he had to concede there was no way he could have raced hard enough to close the gap and get his one-stop tyres to the finishing line.

He reduced the lead to less than ten seconds but eventually it became a matter of guarding second place.

“It soon became not a race with Nico [but] a race to make sure I stayed ahead of the guys behind and didn’t lose any more points,” added Hamilton.

Hamilton is 1.50 to win the drivers’ title this season while Rosberg is now 4.50.