Lewis Hamilton was relieved to see the chequered flag at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Hamilton finished third, the same place he qualified, in a race dominated by tyre struggles for the leading pack. The world champion spent much of the event doubting whether the ultra-soft tyres he had bolted on to his Mercedes at his one and only pit-stop would make it to the finish -- in the end, he finished comfortably clear of Kimi Raikkonen in fourth.
At the end of the race, Hamilton opened up his radio channel to say: "Thank God that's over, that was the most boring race I've ever participated in."
Speaking in the post-race press conference, Hamilton explained: "Our car is very long and struggled with the graining. But yeah, to go away here after such a long race, it felt like the longest race I've ever done probably, it was quite a long race! I'm looking forward to the following races, hopefully they'll be more fun."
Hamilton said the tyre struggles were so extreme that he never felt like he was close to exploring the limits of his car or the Monte Carlo circuit.
"We were just cruising around from lap six, maybe. "Literally cruising. So it wasn't really racing.
"I mean, Daniel [Ricciardo] did a great job today, so super happy for him, but ultimately we were all turned down and just cruising around, making sure we get to the end. Which, I don't know if that was exciting for you guys to watch. If it is, no problem."
The result meant Hamilton kept his lead at the championship, albeit after dropping three points to closest rival Sebastian Vettel, who finished second. Despite taking limited enjoyment from the grand prix, Hamilton was happy to have minimised the damage at a circuit Mercedes was expecting to be third-fastest at.
"Ultimately we knew coming here was going to be difficult for us. It was a much, much better weekend than we had last year. I think collectively we did a good job. I think maybe a couple more tenths in qualifying, maybe it would have been second place, but we would have struggled to stay ahead of Sebastian."