The world championship leader Lewis Hamilton admitted he was relieved to have come away from the Italian Grand Prix with a seventh place finish. A terrible qualifying session had left the Briton only 15th on the grid at Monza. But a stirring drive in the wet conditions saw the McLaren-Mercedes driver race through the pack, running as high as second at one stage, before finishing in seventh, one place behind chief title challenger, Ferrari's Felipe Massa. "At least it was damage control: we came away with some points and we're still in the lead in the championship," Hamilton said. His lead, though, has been trimmed to a single point by Massa, with four races of the championship left. "It's definitely a relief knowing that we came out of here with some points and we didn't lose too many to anyone else," Hamilton added. "It would've been a real shame, a real mess-up, a real big mistake, if we were to come out of here having not scored any points and if Felipe had scored loads more than me, so it was good to get past Kimi [Raikkonen] and hunt them down." @Email:gcaygill@thenational.ae