Lewis Hamilton expressed happiness at his recovery from mid-grid starting spot at the Monaco Grand Prix as he finished the 78-lap race in seventh position.
Hamilton, amid struggles with his W08 in qualifying, dropped out in Q2, and lined up only 13th on the grid, but moved ahead of Stoffel Vandoorne at the start.
Hamilton then profited from problems for Sergio Pérez, Nico Hülkenberg and Kevin Magnussen to make further progress, and extended his first stint on Ultra Soft tyres.
Hamilton pitted and jumped both Daniil Kvyat and Romain Grosjean to emerge in seventh spot, to bag six points from the weekend.
"Of course ultimately I lost a lot of points today but looking at it as a whole today I think I came here, starting 13th, could have been in a crash, could have damaged the car, could have blown an engine, could have come away with no points,” he said.
“I think I managed it nicely and professionally as I could in terms of not pushing too much before the stops happened, closed the gap up, was right at the edge of my brakes and closed at the right time.
“I feel happy with how I utilised the car I had, seeing as you can’t overtake.
“I gave it a couple of stabs towards the end [against Carlos Sainz Jr.] but trying to take a risk and get ahead of him, losing the points we had would have been silly.
“So I thought [about] the long haul, turned the engine down and lived to fight another day.”
Hamilton now trails title rival Sebastian Vettel by 25 points.
