Following another positive performance, Lewis Hamilton admits that he is "counting the days" until the arrival of the first of Mercedes much-anticipated upgrades.

Unable to really mix it with Aston Martin, far less Ferrari and Red Bull, the German team has a major upgrade programme underway, the first of which are set to appear on the W14 next weekend in Miami.

Hamilton, who finished 6th on Sunday, 46s down on the winner, can't wait.

Asked if he thinks the team got the most out of the car, he told Sky Sports: "I think we did. There was great prep before coming here with a couple of days in the factory, plenty of sim running and I'm very proud of the team.

"The mentality of the team is great," he continued, "there is such a winning mind-set, everyone is focused on progressing and getting to where we know we can get to. I don't think there are any mistakes or any failures, I think this is just the build of getting to where we need to be.

"Everyone is staying positive in the garage, everyone is just doing their jobs to the best of their ability and that is all we can ask for right now until we get those upgrades which will hopefully put us much more in the fight.

"We knew already from early on that we would have quite a few races until this upgrade," he admitted. "It's just been counting the days and weeks down.

"We don't currently quite know how good the upgrade will be, we know it will be the start of something new for us. Miami should hopefully be better pace wise than here, last year we were bouncing there a lot so I think we're in a much better place with our car this year.

"I hope we're a little bit closer to the guys there, we might not be as close to the Red Bulls because they're rapid but if we can fight the Astons that would be amazing."

Coming into the Baku weekend, Hamilton was already buoyed by the return of James Allison as technical director.

"I think having him step back in a little bit to support and work alongside Mike (Elliot), I think it's only going to strengthen the team moving forwards," said the seven-time world champion on Thursday. "Obviously he’s got an amazing amount of experience. So, I think moving forwards it's just going to be great for the team. Particularly with all the things we want to achieve, not only on track, but off track. I think it's going to be good."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Baku here.