Bahrain GP: Lotus insists it is not kicking itself over defeat

Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean's chances of victory were effectively dashed by a poor performance in qualifying, which left them unable to threaten eventual winner Sebastian Vettel in the key early stages of the race.

With the pair coming through to finish second and third, there was every chance they could have challenged for the win if they had started near the front.

But Boullier says his outfit should not be downbeat that it missed a good opportunity to win.

"I have to be happy obviously," Boullier told AUTOSPORT. "It is a great result for the team.

"We worked very hard, and everybody back in Enstone built up very well, so we had a nice weekend.

"We had a little bit of a blow in qualifying, but it was a good recovery from the positions on the grid.

"It is clearly good, and an even better point as well is that Romain is clearly now back on track."

Boullier also believed his team had done the right thing in bringing forward Raikkonen's final stop of the race, even though the Finn questioned the move over the radio.

"We could have gone longer, but we wanted to protect our position and make an easy move on Paul di Resta," said Boullier.

"We knew we would be comfortably second, so there was no risk to be taken at this stage.

"It would have been difficult to push on for the win, and anyway the original strategy was only to stop one or two laps later."