Happy Hamilton stays realistic for Spain

The Briton enjoyed his strongest performance of the season so far at Sakhir, finishing 22 seconds behind race winner Jenson Button after having qualified in fifth position.

Hamilton was very happy with the result, but the McLaren driver is expecting a tougher time at Barcelona in two weeks' time, as the circuit is likely to not suit his car.

"I'm delighted with fourth," said Hamilton. "The Toyotas, Red Bulls and Brawns were so fast in the high-speed corners that it was just impossible to keep up.

"But this is another encouraging step for the team, we just need to keep working on the car because we're not really fighting back quite yet, we are collecting points.

"And the gap will be bigger when we go to Barcelona because it's a high-downforce circuit. We should challenge for the top 10 there, but another top five will be harder."

Team-mate Heikki Kovalainen had a day to forget after finishing down in 12th position, having lost all his chances at the start.

Kovalainen said starting with the harder tyre compound had been a mistake.

"My start was a disaster," said the Finn. "Obviously, to begin the race on the prime tyre was the wrong choice. The harder tyres didn't have the right grip and soon started to deteriorate. The tyres started vibrating even though there wasn't a flat-spot.

"After my first pitstop the car felt much better, but by then it was too late to improve dramatically. Anyway, the pace was not very good. We now need to go away and analyse why our performance was not good enough today. We'll be working even harder to improve it ahead of the next race in Barcelona."