Docking assist does not trigger

Does anybody else sometimes have trouble docking? I am granted docking permissions, I have my landing gear out, and I am in the "docking circle" (it shines in blue).

Most of the times I just bump into the station while hoovering down. After a few retries (including sometimes flying a kilometer from the station and back), the docking is successful.

To be more detailed, this is my procedure:

• Ask for docking permission and get granted.
• Fly to the docking pad, at the same time toggling the landing gear
• Position myself over the landing pad, in the accepted landing zone
• Use vertical controls to lower altitude

In other words, a quite straight-forward procedure.

This is getting quite annoying. Has anybody else experienced this? Is there a workaround?