Whilst admitting that third was as good as it was going to get for him in Barcelona,
Lewis Hamilton was a happier man leaving the Circuit de Catalunya than he was departing Sakhir three weeks ago.
In the time that followed the Bahrain Grand Prix, much was written about whether the Briton was losing his grip on the form that made him the talking point of 2007 - a discussion fuelled by his surprise at being only fifth in qualifying in Spain - but Hamilton insists that he had nothing to prove coming to the first European round of the season, and was cheered by the raceday performance of his
McLaren.
"Mistakes happen, [and Bahrain] was just one of those character-building... it was a learning curve, I guess," he ruminated in the post-race pres conference, "But I didn't feel that I had to come here and do anything extra, or do anything different. You know what I can do. I don't feel I need to improve it. I just wanted to come here and do a solid job for the team and get points for both of us.
"I'm really happy with where we've come, especially after not having the best qualifying. But, to see the reliability of the car, how much we could push at the end, and to see the pace of the car improving throughout the race, was quite encouraging."
With former McLaren nemesis
Fernando Alonso and
BMW Sauber's
Robert Kubica both ahead of him on the grid, Hamilton had not appeared to confident of a good result on Sunday but, after two races outside of the top three, he admitted that it was nice to be back on the podium.
"Absolutely, it is good to be back," he beamed, "Obviously, when we qualified fifth, we knew that it would be very difficult to beat the Ferraris, but the key was to get a good start and make as many places as possible. Fortunately, I was able to do that.
