Lewis Hamilton put on a brave face and kept his sense of humour after a frustrating afternoon in Malaysia during which a pre-race penalty and then a botched first pitstop put paid to his hopes of a podium finish.

“I could do with a beer,” he said when asked, after the race, what had been going through his mind as he sat in the pits with nothing to quench his thirst because of a malfunctioning water bottle, waiting for his mechanics to sort out a recalcitrant front-right tyre.

Hamilton had climbed from ninth to fifth place, but was held up by Mark Webber, who drove an impressive race for Red Bull and eventually finished seventh. “I was pushing Mark for a long, long time, but being behind someone is extremely difficult, so it doesn't matter how much quicker you are, it makes it extremely difficult to get past,” Hamilton said.

“Mark drove fantastically well and then we were in with a good shot for third place until the poor pitstop. I am not sure what the problem was, we will have to look into it. I think we need a new wheel gun."

With Webber finally behind him, Hamilton found himself chasing Jarno Trulli, of Toyota, in the closing stages. The Italian's car was slower than Hamilton's on the straights, but he too drove impeccably and the Briton ran out of time to get past him.

“I pushed very hard to get fourth, but Jarno did a great job,” Hamilton said. “I did the best job I could with it, but I had run out of water - I didn't run out of water, it [the bottle] just didn't work, so I am very, very thirsty.”

Hamilton could still take some positives from the weekend. “I feel better than I did last year. We just need to improve in qualifying on this circuit,” he said. “Without the [pre-start penalty], I believe we could have finished in second place, but this is racing, those are the rules. We must look forward to the next race and we are still leading.

“The reliability of the car is fantastic, I was able to keep pushing the entire way and almost got fourth. But we will bounce back in Bahrain. We were quick there last year and I believe we have the car to be quick again.”