BARCELONA, Spain, April 24, 2008 (AFP) - Briton Lewis Hamilton is confident he will return to action stronger and more competitive this weekend after recovering from a lapse of form at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

The 23-year-old Englishman said after the last race at the Sakhir circuit that he felt he had let the McLaren-Mercedes team down by failing to score a point.

But on Thursday he said he had recovered from that setback and was ready to regain his lead in the drivers´ championship. He said he expects this year´s title race to be intense and highly-competitive.

Hamilton said: "Straight after the last race, I knew what had gone wrong and I knew how to correct it.

"So I spent the next few days just dealing with the fact I had a poor performance and then I got back to training and making sure I came here fresh.

"It is always the key, turning it around and coming back stronger. I approach it in the same way and, obviously, I won´t be making the same mistake again.

"This weekend, being here, feeling fresh after a good break from racing, and making sure we come here fresh has been important. I feel good. I am ready for anything again now."

Hamilton, now in third place in the drivers championship behind Ferrari´s defending world champion Finn Kimi Raikkonen and BMW´s German Nick Heidfeld, believes the championship will be very tough.

He said: "For sure, going into the season we thought it was going to be a Ferrari versus McLaren fight, similar to last year, but BMW have made a good step forward. There again, the whole paddock have made a good step forwards.

"We see in qualifying we are closer than last year in terms of the gap between all the cars, so it must be more spectacular to watch. For us as well, having another challenger and trying to beat another team is good fun."

Hamilton does not believe that this Sunday´s race will give a strong indication of what to expect in the season ahead.

"People say that, but I don´t particularly agree," he said. "Last year Ferrari were very, very fast here and so were we, but it is different at every track.

"Obviously we do a lot of testing here and it is a great circuit to do that, the weather is always good and wind quite low, so good for testing and finding pace of the car but all the tracks are different."

Hamilton also made clear he is not expecting any problems with the local Spanish fans following an incident of alleged incident at the circuit during testing in February.

"No," he said clearly when asked about prospects of a repeat. He also

supported the launch of an anti-racism campaign by the sport´s ruling body, the FIA.

"I think it is great the FIA are supporting it, they have all my support and it is great that other drivers are supporting it," he said.