Hamilton sure McLaren will fight back

Hamilton had no response to Ferrari's speed at Magny-Cours as he could manage no better than third place behind Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa.

But with the race extending his own lead in the world championship to 14 points over teammate Fernando Alonso, Hamilton was left looking at the positives from the weekend - and bullish about a fight back at Silverstone.

"Overall I am happy for the team," said Hamilton. "We got good points. I got good points for the championship, which is the key, and obviously we need to keep on pushing. Ferrari are quick but I think we can take it to them at next race.

"I think we'll be competitive at Silverstone. The team are working very, very hard back at the factory to keep improving and I know that at next race we'll be quicker.

"So long as we keep going with reliability and consistently I don't see why we can't keep going for the win."

After losing second place to Raikkonen at the start, Hamilton said he had little chance of recovering the position once the race was underway.

"I didn't get off to the best start," he said. "I don't really know what happened but I saw Kimi come flying past. So he got a better start.

"I had the pace at the beginning and was slightly quicker than Kimi, so I thought I had to try really hard. But when you get close you lose downforce and unless you are seconds quicker you are not going to get past."