Hamilton 'satisfied' despite no points

The McLaren driver, who said he was hoping to fight from victory ahead of the weekend, started from the back of the grid after crashing during qualifying.

From there, he was unable to make much progress on a track where overtaking is virtually impossible. Hamilton finished down in 12th position, a lap down.

Despite that, the Briton said we has pleased to have made it to the end.

"It was an extremely tough race," Hamilton told the BBC. "I feel quite satisfied though, because I wanted to finish.

"I was thinking of one of the Rocky films when he says, 'I just want to see the end of the fight', and I got to the flag having pushed as hard as I could throughout the race.

"We will keep pushing."

Hamilton, who survived an early scare when he made contact with the BMW Sauber of Nick Heidfeld, said he will try again next year.

"I broke the nose on my car," he said. "I think my car was pretty much damaged from early on when I clipped one of the BMWs into turn one twice.

"I broke the wing and I hit my wheel as well so I had a lot of understeer throughout the race. But then I put the new wing on and it went a bit better.

"I'll be back next year to try and win."