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Monaco GP: Hamilton salvages some Monaco joy with 13th to 7th push

Lewis Hamilton says he will come away from his Monaco Grand Prix race feeling 'very positive' despite surrendering a significant chunk of points to race winner Sebastian Vettel with his seventh place finish.

The Briton came into the race facing an uphill task after qualifying dramas left him 13th on the grid around a circuit notoriously difficult to overtake on, Hamilton not helped much by progressing just a single position to 12th after the start.

However, Hamilton bided his time and despite not passing any driver on track through the race made his long first stint count to come out in seventh position, which he held to the chequered flag.

Though a frustrating result in context of title rival Vettel - who is now 25 points clear in the standings - Hamilton was satisfied with the outcome in isolation.

"I feel really good, I feel very positive. I feel really happy. I came here today a lot further back and I had no idea what was going to happen. The beginning of the race was quite boring and then when I got in that clear air, I had a lot of fun. The team said in the strategy meeting this morning that 10th was the best I could get, which really would have sucked.

"But I'm really happy that I was able to leapfrog those guys as you can't overtake on track. Six points. The gap's big, for sure, but not impossible to close. I come away I would say from one of the most difficult weekends that I've had for a while. Still lots of positives to take from it. Just let my guys know that we never give up and we keep going."

Facing up to the large margin to Vettel ahead - equivalent of a race win -, Hamilton remains confident he is still in the hunt despite his Ferrari rival's superb start to the year.

"It was hard to close up to where I was coming into this weekend. 25 points is a long way, but I've got some incredible support here, back home, all over.

"The team I know are going to work as hard as they can to make sure we're ahead of the Ferraris, and I'm going to work as hard as I can to make sure that a weekend like this is not repeated. Montreal, we're going to have to seriously bring it there."

Zdroj: crash.net