A disappointing qualifying for the Woking team saw the Australian start only 18th, but after avoiding the first corner mayhem he made good progress up the order and even ran in third place.
However, the strategy of running the opening two stints on hard tyres after a clash with Lewis Hamilton triggered a premature first pit visit and obliged him to make a late pitstop for mediums under green flag conditions.
That dropped him down the order, although he managed to recover to 10th place while also logging the bonus point for the fastest lap.
Asked by Autosport if he could have got more out of the race with a different strategy, he said: "Yeah, I think so. I think the timing of the safety car was pretty much perfect for the guys who stayed out on mediums at the start.
“You look at [Esteban] Ocon, and it worked perfectly for him, and I was really wishing the rule of using two compounds didn't exist, because I would've just gone to the end on the hards and I think we had the pace to hang on to P4, so that was a shame.
“But the pace of the car was a really good surprise. I think yesterday [qualifying] wasn't particularly representative of our pace, but today [race] was probably better than we expected, so we need to understand what the difference was.
Source: Autosport