Lewis Hamilton has said that McLaren needs to improve its car for the Turkish Grand Prix if it wants to continue challenging for race victories.
Hamilton halted Red Bull's dominance of the season so far with victory in China, overtaking Sebastian Vettel with five laps to go. With McLaren having been off the pace during winter testing Hamilton paid tribute to how far the team had come during the early part of the season, but warned that further improvements were needed.
"We needed this win," Hamilton said. "Looking back at the last few weeks, we have done something incredible at this team. To have turned the car around and made it a winner; we've never done something that big in such a short space of time. I take my hat off to everybody back at the MTC - once again, they've performed miracles. But we can't sit still.
We've still got more work to do to be able to match Red Bull. Don't get me wrong, what we've done has been incredible, but we need to go into the Turkish Grand Prix with more upgrades and improvements if we're to continue fighting at the front. And we know that other teams won't be standing still either. So although this win is the perfect way to head back to Europe and prepare for Istanbul, this is just the start of the fight."
Hamilton's win in China was far from straightforward, as a flooded engine almost forced him to start from the pit lane. He said that while his mechanics fixed the problem there was nothing he could do other than focus on the race.
"It was a really unusual moment: we've had times before there's maybe been a problem with the car, or a delay in leaving the garage, but it's never happened before when it's been so tight or so important. I could hear over the radio that there was a problem starting the engine, and I could see people were starting to react a bit more quickly. To be honest, I just wanted to keep calm: I was strapped into the cockpit and I knew this wasn't something where I could help.
Andy [Latham, race engineer] did a great job of keeping me informed, but also just staying calm. And Philip [Prew, principal race engineer] kept an eye on the countdown and made sure we made it out to the grid in time. And I want to say a big thank-you to all the guys. They already know that I think they're the best in the world, but, on Sunday, they really came through - they knew exactly how to respond, they never panicked and they identified and solved the problem in just a matter of minutes. I think their experience really made the difference."
After the race Hamilton named the win as one of his best alongside Monaco and Silverstone in 2008. He added that it was the overall team performance coupled with his own driving display that caused him to rank it so highly.
"For me, it wasn't just an attacking race, although there was a big element of pure racing, which I love. Those two wins [Monaco and Silverstone] weren't just about aggression either - I won those races through pure speed but also with intelligence, and with support from everyone in the pitlane. They were really complete race wins - and they're the most satisfying."
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