Lewis Hamilton said he will learn from the mistakes he made on his way to ninth place in the European Grand Prix.
Hamilton finished ninth after an eventful race in Germany
Hamilton failed to score for the first time as team-mate Fernando Alonso cut his championship lead to two points.
The Englishman said he had made mistakes choosing tyres for his McLaren in a race defined by rain showers.
He said: "You come from a bad weekend, you find the lessons and I will find them. I learned 10 times as much in the last race. Overall, I enjoyed it."
Hamilton and his McLaren team twice made mistakes in choosing tyres during a chaotic race.
After the race was brought to a halt by a torrential downpour, he chose to take the restart on dry-weather tyres, and immediately slid off the track, putting himself a lap behind.
And after fighting his way back up into the points to eighth place, he chose to stay on dry tyres as everyone else pitted during a late-race shower of rain.
It was my call on the tyres and sometimes things just happen
The decision again back-fired, and he was forced to come in for wet-weather tyres shortly afterwards.
But Hamilton said he was not frustrated at the end of an incident-packed weekend, which also included a 150mph crash that left him with painfully bruised stomach muscles.
"I came here completely sick, had one of the biggest crashes I ever had, then got a puncture, went into the gravel, it started to rain - it was really a great weekend in terms of learning," Hamilton said.
"I really feel I've made a big step in terms of experience. It's been an extraordinary weekend.
"It was my call on the tyres and sometimes things just happen. I pushed as hard as I could to catch up but congratulations to Alonso. It's not over yet."
It's an important race but the championship is so long
Hamilton said it was inevitable that his run of podium finishes would come to an end.
"I told you from day one that was going to happen eventually," he said.
"That's racing. You know, you can't have a perfect racing day race after race. It doesn't feel strange.
"I told you it's inevitable that someday I'm not going to finish on the podium. So I was ready for it."
The Englishman had started the weekend with a 12-point advantage over his team-mate.
Ferrari's Felipe Massa finished second to Alonso to close to within 11 points of Hamilton, while the other Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen failed to finish and is still 18 points off the lead.
But Alonso kept his enthusiasm in check despite clawing back vital points.
"It's an important race but the championship is so long," the Spanish double world champion said.
"You never know what's going to happen in 14 days. In Hungary anything can happen.
"We're still working in the same direction, same way. No doubt it will be tight in the end for all four drivers."