Hamilton happy to settle for second

The British driver was edged out by teammate Fernando Alonso, despite a hard charge throughout the race, and acknowledged that his only real chance for victory was if the world champion had made a mistake late on.

"I knew that we were both extremely quick, and when you are behind you cannot follow that closely," said Hamilton about the final stages of the race. "I knew I would not have a chance to overtake him, so the only way was to apply the pressure.

"But he is a two-time champion and doesn't make mistakes. He did a great job and the team as well. We made a fantastic step forward and we are a step ahead of what everyone else has done."

Hamilton said that the traffic problems in the race had not really hampered his bid for victory - although said that backmarkers could have been more helpful.

"Today I think the traffic was quite poor, although it is always poor at Monaco because it is quite tight.

"Fernando would get past and then I would have to shout on the radio to get them to put the blue flags out. It is always tricky. I would gain then lose, and that would make it extremely difficult.

"I had to be as aggressive as possible and safe, because I needed to come out of this race with as many points as possible."

And Hamilton revealed that he had had several brushes with the barriers in the race in his bid to try and close the gap on Alonso.

"I hit the barriers plenty of times in the race and fortunately we have a solid car," he said. "The team did a good job as usual and the car was strong enough to take the hits

"Both of us had great pace. It was tough and I tried to get as close as possible to try and get ahead. Next time, I guess."