The Australian qualified his AlphaTauri an encouraging 11th for his first event since he injured his hand in a practice crash at the Dutch GP, and he eventually started 10th after George Russell was penalised.
However, he was shuffled down two places at the start and remained in 12th place for the duration.
"I would say there were definitely some pros and cons,” he said when asked by Autosport about his return.
“I think the pros were it was fun, I just really enjoyed being back on the grid. It's probably always my favourite feeling on a race weekend, when like the lights slowly all turn on and then off for the start, that adrenaline spike, it's hard to get that in many other things in life. So that was really enjoyable.
“I don't like saying it because I'm very experienced, but this year not so experienced. So a bit of race rust, I think.
“At Turn 1 part of me was like I should have seen the inside bottle up a little earlier, and I kind of stayed there, and then a couple cars went on the outside.
“So little kind of race reads which I probably missed a little bit. But then through the race I felt like I picked up some lines and made some improvements, but certainly still some things to work on for tomorrow."
Source: Autosport