Hamilton unhappy with China showing

The McLaren driver finished in sixth position after a series of errors and spins in the tricky conditions.

Hamilton was afterwards praised by his team for his aggressive approach, but the Briton admits his performance was below par.

"It was a very tough race - the visibility, particularly at the start of the race, was really terrible - you could hardly see anything - but then things got a little better," said Hamilton on his website.

"It's just a pity that I had a couple of spins. I love driving in the rain but I definitely didn't drive as well as I could on Sunday.

"Afterwards, people were congratulating me on a good performance, but overall I was a bit dissatisfied with my race."

Hamilton reckons that, without the errors, he could have challenged for a place on the podium.

He added: "I wanted to do better. It was good for the team to get both cars into the points, but I felt that I should have done better: I was running as high as fifth before spinning in the early laps and, looking at how the race panned out, I feel pretty certain I could have been nearer the front challenging for a podium."

The McLaren driver is hopeful his team will continue making progress at this weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix thanks to the introduction of new parts.

"We should have a few new components at Bahrain so I hope we'll continue with our progress," he said. "As long as we are moving forwards, it makes it all the more worthwhile and rewarding.

"I never thought I would be so happy to make it into Q3 in Shanghai, but we did and that was a result of a huge team development effort. More of the same is what I am looking forward to."