A gearbox change at the Red Bull Ring landed Hamilton a five-place grid penalty, meaning he had to start from eighth and could only recover to fourth despite a late charge to oust Daniel Ricciardo from the podium.
The build-up to the weekend was centred on the fall-out from the Brit’s collision with championship leader Sebastian Vettel in Baku and the fact the German escaped further punishment from the FIA.
Hamilton is keen to put those issues behind him and approach next weekend’s race at Silverstone with a clear head.
“I have a couple of down days now and look forward to seeing the home crowd. Hopefully we won’t approach Silverstone with any issues and can start with a clean slate,” he said on Sky Sports.
“I think it’s pretty average but I did the best I could.
“It was the strategy that we had. I stopped earlier and had planned to go for another 10 laps or so.
“[It was] a tough race, a difficult track to overtake but I gave it everything I had.
“I had one opportunity on Daniel but couldn’t make it stick which was a bit unfortunate. But you have to find a balance with the risk.”
Vettel finished second behind Bottas to open up a 20-point lead over Hamilton in the race for the drivers’ title.
Hamilton praised his Mercedes team-mate for topping the podium but admitted he is “a long way down” on the championship leader.
He said: “Congratulations to Valtteri, he did a solid job all weekend and deserved the win.
“I’m not thinking of anything right now. Twenty points is a long way down and it’s a constant challenge but it’s a long way to go.”
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