Hamilton hopes for 'huge' step forward

The Briton qualified in 19th position and finished down in 16th over a lap down on race winner Sebastian Vettel after a few 'offs' and a spin.

But Hamilton is hopeful that some of the upcoming tracks will suit his car better.

The world champion also insisted McLaren has to keep on pushing with the development of this year's car in order to learn from its mistakes.

"I'm hoping that we will have some huge improvements for the race as it would be great to give our second home crowd something to cheer and feel proud about, but we'll see," Hamilton said on his website.

"Places like Hungary, Valencia and Singapore should hopefully be stronger for us and so there is 'light at the end of the tunnel' for the end of season push.

"We need a competitive car before the end of the season so we can learn as much as we possibly can for next season."

Hamilton admitted that, despite his struggles in Sunday's race, he enjoyed the battles with his rivals.

"Yes, it was a difficult afternoon for the whole team, but we knew that going into the weekend," he said. "I had some exciting moments out on the race track and really enjoyed my race. And while the result didn't look so good for us, again, I think we can take some positives away from this weekend because we genuinely learnt a lot about our car.

"It's still not going to be a night-and-day change that makes the difference, but I'm hoping that we can gain some advantage to help improve our results."