Lewis Hamilton has apologised to his Mercedes team following an error in the pit lane which cost him a chance to win the Bahrain Grand Prix this afternoon.

The three-time world champion finished 6.6 seconds behind winner Sebastian Vettel at the Sakhir Circuit, thanks largely to a five-second time penalty for driving "unnecessarily slowly and erratically" in the pit lane as he tried to prevent Daniel Ricciardo from getting past.

Hamilton did still manage to fight back into second place, but he acknowledged that his mistake denied him the opportunity to top the podium.

"It was completely my fault. You are supposed to have a five-second gap to the safety car and I think I had a four-second gap so it was just a misjudgement from myself," he told reporters.

"I had very good pace in the second and last stint, and honestly believed that I would be able to catch Sebastian up. But with the five-second penalty, that made it twice as hard than it was already going to be.

"Apologies to the team, but I tried my best to recover it. We still got good points and we still have this great fight as Sebastian did a great job."

Hamilton now trails Ferrari's Vettel by seven points after three races.