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Hamilton hails McLaren's recovery

Lewis Hamilton said it was an incredible feeling to return to winning ways after a commanding first victory of 2009 at the Hungarian Grand Prix

The Briton had scored just nine points up the Hungarian race this year, and he had not scored a race win since last year's Chinese Grand Prix.

But Hamilton completed McLaren's recovery in perfect fashion on Sunday, dominating the race at the Hungaroring circuit.

After such a difficult first half of the year, McLaren driver Hamilton was ecstatic with his team's turnaround in form.

"It is an incredible feeling to be back here after all," said Hamilton. "It feels such a long time away, such a struggle with me and the team but as I said on the in-lap I am so proud of the guys.

"I go to the factory and see how hard everyone pushing, they never gave up and it is something very rare to see in a large group of people.

"We didn't expect to win this weekend. It bit didn't feel we had pace to win but the car felt fantastic. It's incredibly special to be back up here, not just on the podium but just to get this win.

"The car was fantastic. The team asked me to look after tyres, and through experience I was able to do that, so thanks to the guys and fans, and my family."

Hamilton said, however, that McLaren must continue to push with the development of the car in order to win regularly.

"We have to take as much as we can from this weekend," he added. "We need to continue to push, it doesn't mean we can start slowing down.

"We will keep pushing, we have improvements to make and work to do to beat these guys on a regular basis. It's one huge leap for us, let's keep going."

The McLaren driver, who gave a KERS-equipped car its first win a Formula 1 race, also remembered Ferrari driver Felipe Massa, who missed today's race after his terrible crash on Saturday.

"I want to say yesterday was for all us drivers quite a sad day to see Felipe not here today and I speak on behalf of us all, we miss him and wish him a quick recovery."

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