Daniil Kvyat feels his drive to 15th was the maximum he could have hoped for in Germany and "two steps forward" after his devastating end of qualifying a day earlier.
Kvyat looked a broken figure on Saturday after qualifying 19th at Hockenheim, saying his current career slump seemed "never ending". The Russian driver has scored just two points since being demoted from Red Bull to Toro Rosso ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix.
On Sunday a solid drive saw him recover to 15th, one place behind teammate Carlos Sainz. That result came after receiving words of encouragement on the grid from both Red Bull consultant Helmut Marko and team boss Christian Horner.
Speaking about his race, Kvyat said: "I felt that many people who know me saw I was not myself these last few weeks, also Christian. I don't need anyone to be sorry for me or anything but I think everyone has these points in life. For sure, [qualifying] was a low point. But already I felt like I took not one but two steps forward."
When asked if he felt he had got the best from the car, he replied: "Exactly, I felt I got absolutely the maximum out of it. It was positive on that note. Nothing could have been done better today from outside, so it's quite positive."
Kvyay says the key to his positive drive was not dwelling too much on what had happened in qualifying and letting his racing instincts take over.
"[I did] nothing special, just went to the car and did my job, really not thinking about too much or over-analysing. Just did my usual job, just drove on my instincts and it paid off quite well. I think that's how we continue that approach for now, it's been working good and it should be much better from the second half of the season."