Making his first visit to the podium of the season, Lewis Hamilton warns that Mercedes has to keep pushing.

Having qualified third on Saturday, the seven-time world champion rounded off his weekend by claiming third in the race, having passed his teammate in the closing stages.

"This is the best weekend I've had all year, and for a long, long time, for like 15 races or something crazy," said the Briton, a six time winner at the Spanish track.

"It's good to be back," he grinned, "it's good to have battles like today, it's good to reassert and reaffirm."

However, despite the podium, and the 27 points he and his teammate earned, Hamilton is all too aware that more is needed if Mercedes is to take on McLaren and Ferrari, far less Red Bull.

"We're slowly getting closer," he said. "Last year, we were very fast here, so you have to take it with a pinch of salt, but obviously the last couple of races we've been relatively competitive.

"So, I think we have closed the gap a little bit, but we still have a good couple of tenths to try and find, He admitted. "We just have to have all hands on deck and keep pushing."

Asked if the improvement since the recent upgrade package is an indication that Mercedes can now fine-tune the car, the Briton was adamant: "No, I think that's the maximum it's got at the moment," he replied. "We're always fine-tuning it with subtle changes that we make. So, we are always fine-tuning it and we continue to tune it through the year. We need to bolt some stuff on, some extra bits to be able to compete with these guys.

"Our pace is where we were, basically," he continued, "third or fourth this weekend. But I think our car is generally quite peaky and that means that it's often out of balance. It's very rare that it's in balance and it's nice and smooth through a corner.

"So, set-up... I've obviously experimented a lot with set-up over the last couple of years, but the car doesn't really like any of the set-ups but one. It's slowly starting to become nicer to drive.

And ultimately tyres... tyres have been a huge issue for me.

"So, I think we got it half-decent this weekend. If I can make some improvements over the course of the next races, I think there's more performance there," he insisted.

"It has been a while that he was on the receiving end and strategy had worked against him and today that was in his favour," said team boss, Toto Wolff. "I'm happy that we have that podium for him."

However, as Mercedes appears to be improving, Ferrari seems to be losing touch. Asked if this is a concern, considering he heads to Maranello next season, Hamilton said: "My job next year will be to start with the other team, and they are doing a great job. They have had a difficult couple of races but let's not forget they had a race win in Monaco.

"I don't know what is wrong with their car and why they are in the position they are in," he added. "But it doesn't make me second-guess my decision at all."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Barcelona here.