Lewis Hamilton believes he would have finished second in Bahrain if not for an opening-lap incident with Felipe Massa.

Reviewing in-car footage from the first few corners of Sunday's race, Hamilton refused to condemn the driving of Felipe Massa outright but it was clear he felt that the Brazilian had overstepped the mark.

"I didn't even know who it was," the McLaren driver said, watching the re-run. "He was squeezing, He looked in the mirror... it was pretty aggressive. I didn't realise how far I was ahead."

Asked if he would have acted any differently had he been in Massa's position, Hamilton pointedly replied: "I probably wouldn't have risked banging wheels at that speed."

Forced offline, Hamilton could not defend as Nico Rosberg went past and took fourth place.

Although he later got back ahead of the Mercedes GP driver during his pit stop and also passed Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull when the latter developed problems late in the race, Hamilton believes the outcome of the race could have been different had he overtaken Massa.

"If I had pulled that move off I think I would have kept up with Fernando," he declared.

Of his performance throughout the weekend, Hamilton stressed the need for McLaren to give him a car capable of matching Ferrari drivers Alonso and Massa.

"It's a strong result for me and the team, more than I expected, but we need

to push to keep up with these guys," he added.

Meanwhile, after coming home seventh in his first race for McLaren, Jenson Button said he had been too cautious.

Starting eighth on the grid, Button had an inauspicious outing and relied on his pit crew to get him past Red Bull's Mark Webber at the pit stops.

"I'm a bit sad we pitted when we did because I felt I had saved my tyres a bit too much," he lamented. "The last two laps on the softs I was pushing and immediately caught up with Webber. And then we pitted. I was a little bit conservative.

"I think we're pretty good at looking after our tyres. It was a good first race, I'm reasonably happy with that."

Button said McLaren's MP4-25 was performing better over a race distance than during qualifying and admitted that both he and the team had work to do.

"It's very difficult here because you can't overtake. I was stuck behind Michael, but I think we've shown that our race pace is definitely quicker than our qualifying pace.

"The Ferrari is definitely the car to beat. The Red Bull is a quick car but in race trim it's nowhere near. Our car is a good car but there are definitely things I have to work on."