Nico Rosberg accepts his fifth placed finish in Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix was the best he could have hoped for, especially after his dismal opening lap.
Although Mercedes are known for their flying starts, Rosberg's was anything but with the German dropping from fifth to ninth on lap one.
The Chinese GP winner fought his way back through the field but could only manage fifth place, almost a minute behind race winner Sebastian Vettel.
"I had a pretty bad first lap today, but after that I was able to recover and get the most of our race," Rosberg said.
"We had a good strategy and the pace of the car was pretty strong compared to the start of the season, although it was difficult to make progress as there were a lot of cars fighting for the same positions.
"Overall I'm happy with our weekend as fifth place gives me a few more points and I can see that we are making progress.
"Now we have a short break where we can work hard in the factory ready for the start of the European season."
Meanwhile, the stewards cleared Rosberg of dangerous driver after he was investigated in two separate incidents, one involving Lewis Hamilton and another with Fernando Alonso.
However, the stewards "unanimously decided to take no further action."
Rosberg's team-mate had tough time on Sunday as Michael Schumacher had to fight his way through the field from 22nd place after a DRS issue in qualifying and a gearbox penalty.
But fight he did with the German finishing in 10th place and scoring only his second point of the season.
"Considering where I started the race today, it's a positive that I was able to fight up to 10th place, score a point and finish a dry race this season," he said.
"The tyres obviously played a large part in the race today, and in the conditions here, we had to adapt the driving style to keep the tyres together.
"It will be good to have the time now before Barcelona to sort out some issues and prepare our updates for the test days in Mugello."
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