Lewis Hamilton was encouraged by the world championship winning form his McLaren team showed at the Canadian Grand Prix, despite his race ending in a pit lane disaster.

Hamilton will be demoted ten places on the grid for the French Grand Prix later this month after ending both his own and Kimi Raikkonen's race in the Montreal pit lane.

The 23-year-old Briton, battling for a second consecutive win in Canada, did not realise that Raikkonen had stopped at a pit exit red-light and barrelled into the back of the Finn's Ferrari.

Hamilton was obviously disappointed to have retired from the race but he believes that McLaren have moved forward in terms of performance and should now be in position to fight for the world title.

"Before my pit stop, everything looked on course for the perfect result: we were so quick, we were breezing it in fact," he said.

"We had looked so strong for the whole weekend, so at least we can leave Montreal confident that we have a package that will enable us to fight for the World Championship from here on in."

Hamilton put the incident down to bad luck, but accepted that he deserved his punishment: "It was not a great pit stop — and, as I exited the box, I saw two cars jostling for position ahead of me in the pit lane.

"Obviously, I didn't want to get involved in their tussle, and was trying not to do so, and then all of a sudden they stopped. And by the time they'd come to a halt, it was too late for me to avoid them.

"It is just unfortunate when stuff like this happens, but I have no argument with the stewards."

Hamilton will now be hard-pushed to earn a podium finish in the French Grand Prix and faces losing more ground to Polish championship leader Robert Kubica, who was the main beneficiary of the Montreal pit lane fiasco.

Kubica went on to claim his, and BMW Sauber's, maiden grand prix win and is now four points clear of Hamilton and Ferrari's Felipe Massa.

McLaren CEO Martin Whitmarsh has admitted that Hamilton will now have his work cut out at Magny-Cours and whilst he confirmed that there will be no appeal, he questioned the fact that Raikkonen was not penalised for a similar incident at Monaco a fortnight ago.

Whitmarsh said: "It is disappointing, it is a decision the stewards have made so we've got to now make the best we can out of it. There was a different view taken in Monaco but we have got to work with what we're given.

"We will take the loss of a likely win and the 10-place grid penalty squarely on the chin."

Whitmarsh echoed Hamilton's optimism regarding the pace of the McLaren car in Canada, but he was cautious over whether that level of performance could be translated to the vastly different challenge of the upcoming French and British Grands Prix.

He said: "In terms of top-end speed we were stronger and in terms of pace we were very strong. But, in reality, Montreal is very unusual in its characteristics, and we are about to go to two circuits that are much more typical with long, flowing corners. It is going to be an interesting phase.

"Last year we were very strong in the combination of Monaco and Canada, when we got back to high-speed corner tracks, Ferrari was stronger than us. I hope that's not going to be the case this year."

AFP