ISTANBUL, May 11, 2008 (AFP) - Lewis Hamilton said his second place finish behind Brazilian Felipe Massa in Sunday's Turkish Grand Prix was a result of the "best race I have ever done".

Hamilton's runner-up place allowed him to close the gap to championship leader Kimi Raikkonen to seven points, although the Briton is now tied with Massa in second place.

And he was delighted at both his own performance, and that of his team, as they upset predictions of a fifth place finish.

"It doesn't particularly matter whether you win or not, it's whether you drive at 100 per cent.

"It's whether you extract the most out of the car. It's one of those times when you end the race and you ask yourself and you ask the team, could we have done a better job?

"And I strongly feel we couldn't have done a better job. The pit stops were almost perfect, if not perfect, and I think my in laps, my out laps, they were stronger than ever and I just feel my race pace is getting stronger and stronger over the year, at each race.

"We had a strong showing in Barcelona and even stronger here. And we overtook a Ferrari.

"And another thing - my predicted race finish was fifth. It could have been a lot worse. If I had got a worse start and didn't get away in second, then I probably would have come sixth or even worse so with a three stop strategy that no one else had I feel we did a fantastic job to bring it back up."

Hamilton explained he had been forced to use a slower three-stop strategy on safety grounds because of fears that his McLaren car's Bridgestone tyres would fail and blow out.

He said: "I didn't do the best job in qualifying, but I got on with it today.

"Going into the race I remained optimistic and so did the team and we pushed through. I think the result is the result of hard work from all the guys.

"They did fantastic pit-stops and I think for me I probably drove the best race I have ever done.

"It won't happen anywhere else. Last year I had a tyre blow-out here so they were already quite worried. Coming into this weekend, they thought they had fixed the problem and somehow we seemed to have the problem again.

"But then again in the race the tyres were fine. We were sort of put on the back foot going into qualifying knowing that we were not really in the shoot for the win even if we did get pole position.

"I struggled on my Q3 lap to get a good time so even with a lighter car I was not able to put it on the front row.

"For sure, it (the fear of a blowout) was on my mind at some stages. I was having some vibrations and I wasn't sure whether that was the tyre or whether that was a flat spot that I possibly picked up earlier on.

"So for sure it was in the back of my mind. I was checking the tyre nearly every lap on the exit of turn eight to see if. last time it was on the exit of turn eight - it delaminated and the tyre exploded.

"So, this time, I was just making sure I kept an eye on that so I could report to the team as quickly as possible and possibly come in. Fortunately, the tyres were fine but no, it was all down to safety really.

"That was why we were forced into that because they didn't want to have another incident, a bit like the last race or like last year. There's nothing worse than having a tyre blow out at 200mph - so they tried to avoid that.

"Unfortunately, it put us on the back foot, as I said. Without a three stop perhaps we would have had a better chance of winning the race, but nevertheless, I'm very happy with second."