Karun Chandhok was happy with his race efforts on his Team Lotus debut, despite finishing at the back of the field around the Nurburgring.

The Indian driver, drafted in for Jarno Trulli in Germany, qualified 21st and came home in Sunday's 20th – four laps down on winner Lewis Hamilton, who came home ahead of Fernando Alonso, Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel respectively.

'That's a full race distance completed and an awful lot of learning under my belt,' said Chandhok, who finished behind the Virgins of Timo Glock and Jerome d'Ambrosio, as well as Hispania's Daniel Ricciardo.

'Honestly, that probably wasn't the race I wanted – I had a couple of high speed spins and I think I need more time to get used to the tyres.

'When they start to go off there is very little give compared to last year's rubber, but that is all part of the learning process and I'm glad I got the car home and did the best job I could.'

Trulli should return to his race seat for Hungary in seven days' time, while team-mate Heikki Kovalainen pretty much had the German circuit to himself as he took a decent 16th finish from 18th on the grid – booking a two car placing for Hingham's Formula One team; a good response to their disappointing double failure at Silverstone earlier this month.

'I think that was a pretty good race,' said Kovalainen. 'For me, everything was working well in the car but honestly it was a bit lonely out there.

'We are not quite with the guys ahead and we are well clear of the teams behind, so I wanted to make sure I could push as hard as possible over the full race distance, not make any mistakes and get the car home in one piece.

'We are progressing in the right direction, and it will take time to be able to really fight with the guys in front, but we'll get there.'

Norwich-born chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne added: 'It was good to get both cars home over the line. Heikki had good pace, particularly on the options and he was able to keep up with the cars ahead throughout most of the race. Karun acquitted himself pretty well, despite having a couple of moments he got on with the job and has definitely learnt a lot from his time in the car here this weekend.

'The whole team has worked very hard to make sure we could have a two car finish, so well done to them and now we can move straight on to Hungary where the aim will be the same – progress little by little and keep moving forward.'