McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh feels Lewis Hamilton's "discipline and control" display at the British GP was the perfect response to his critics.
Hamilton has been accused of being too aggressive on the track after he was involved in a spate of incidents at the Monaco and Canadian Grands Prix.
However, he hasn't allowed the criticism to get to him and put in an excellent performance at Silverstone to finish fourth after starting 10th on the grid.
What was most pleasing for Whitmarsh, was the fact that Hamilton kept a cool head despite being asked to save fuel during the latter stages of the race.
"In difficult conditions Lewis drove a great race," said Whitmarsh.
"He has to be congratulated for discipline and control to race a car in which he had to back off, to save fuel, to coast.
"It sounds easy, but your tyres and brakes cool off, the balance changes and it is much more difficult to drive a car when it's not on the sweet spot, but he did a great job.
"I think it was a drive in response to the critics, just avoiding the podium in a car that wasn't the quickest.
"It would have been very easy, under the conditions, to have become frustrated, to have not saved the required fuel, to have lost focus and balance when in effect you are having to let drivers past.
"It's not a comfortable place to be, but he drove without mistake, with the right levels of passion and aggression, and above all with the right level of discipline and control throughout."
Despite Hamilton's fourth-place finish, McLaren had a pretty dire home grand prix. The pit wall made some mistakes during qualifying while the pit crew lost a wheel nut during Jenson Button's final pit stop, forcing the 2009 World Champ to retire.
"It is accepted and acknowledged there is more pressure on a team like McLaren than the majority of the teams in this paddock," Whitmarsh added.
"I don't have a problem with that because actually the pressure is from within us. We expect to win.
"If we ever sat back and said 'Well, that was okay, it was fourth place, nearly a podium', and started to congratulate ourselves, then it would be the beginning of the end.
"We have to be disappointed all the time we are not winning any of the races.
"Sometimes that is a positive motivating force, other times it can bubble over into a destructive frustration.
"It can be amplified in some things you say, but you have to accept that is part of the game."
