Lewis Hamilton emerged smiling after his first day of testing ahead of the new Formula One season and citing a "night-and-day feeling" compared to McLaren's horror show of a year ago.

Hamilton completed 108 laps of the 2.5 mile Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia and finished third at the end of Tuesday's with a best lap time of one minute and 12.256 seconds, 0.534 seconds behind Ferrari's Felipe Massa, who again finished quickest after racking up 124 laps.

"It was a night-and-day feeling compared to the first test day of 2009," said the 2008 world champion.

"I've a positive feeling. I've kept a close eye on the development of this car, and the results we got in the end of 2009.

"I've seen the car evolve and having had input into it I was very excited to see what parts had improved.

"I got out smiling. All the problems I had in the last car, I don't have in this one.

With Hamilton and McLaren at least in the reckoning after two solid days of testing, the 25-year-old is now looking for his team to put in the effort of last year prior to the first race.

With less than six weeks to the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, Hamilton added: "It's too early to say that this is a car that can challenge. But I do feel it's a huge improvement from the beginning of 2009 - we're not two to three seconds behind.

"We're hopeful to be competing. We were third (quickest) today, so were not last, which is a nice feeling. The encouraging thing is reliability. We've had two days and not really had any problems, and that's a huge plus for us."

Hamilton, who tonight returned home, hands over the car to current world champion and team-mate Jenson Button for the remainder of the test.