Lewis Hamilton was left with mixed emotions as he bemoaned a chaotic start to the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Hamilton recovered from a terrible start to finish third on Sunday, behind Max Verstappen and Kimi Antonelli.

Chaos sparked from the off in Malaysia, with heavy rain before the start finally setting up the season's first wet-weather action.

There were then two disruptions due to safety cars, while Ferrari made a mess of Hamilton's tyre strategy.

Hamilton had qualified second on the grid, but his hopes of a win took a huge dent when Ferrari chose to start him and Charles Leclerc on soft slicks.

And though Hamilton drove brilliantly to clinch a podium finish, he was not thrilled with how the day panned out.

"It's a mixed emotion. On one side I'm really grateful to have got back to the podium," he told Sky Sports F1.

"And then on the other side, with the debates that we were having in the background, to then see the covers come off the car ahead and the one behind, them on wets and us on slicks, and the track being so tricky and dangerous at the beginning, it was definitely… my heart sank, and I was like, 'that's the race over'."

Hamilton told reporters in his post-race press conference: "There was such a long wait and we were debating on what tyre to go on to. And I said, 'look, there was a lot of spray on the laps to the grid'.

"And I went into the pit lane, I looked at the ground, I was like, 'it's still wet'. I went to the pit wall and I was like, 'it's still wet'. And they're like, 'yeah, but because it's been so long, it's definitely going to dry up real quick and maybe we're already in the crossover'.

"So, anyways, as a team, we ended up taking that soft and when we were at the end of the pit lane and these two took off their blankets and they're on inters, we were in trouble."

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Verstappen, meanwhile, was able to celebrate his first race win in 301 days.

"It's a really nice one [win] after the year we've had and the progression we have made," said Verstappen.

"I'm incredibly proud of everyone. Just super nice to win here.

"It's incredible. To win our first race in our first year with our own power unit is pretty impressive."

George Russell, on the other hand, endured a miserable day, as he was forced out of the race due to a suspected power unit failure with five laps to go, in a huge blow to his title hopes.

"I'm so massively annoyed, and not in a happy place," Toto Wolff told Sky Sports F1.

"First of all, we didn't have the speed that we were hoping to have before the weekend, so there's a lot of homework to be done in order to recover, which I'm sure we will.

"Then the race literally, if you consider the fight with Lewis [Hamilton] behind, went against us. We had such an advantage: one VSC, two Safety Cars, you couldn't be more unlucky.

"And to make things worse, a PU failure with a few laps to go until the end for George, which is terrible for his championship and not good at all for our constructors' points.

"So, as much as I love to be here when I look at the pure races, one of my worst experiences, to be honest."