McLaren says qualifying position and pitstops made it possible for Hamilton to beat Lotus

Hamilton fought to keep both Romain Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen at bay for various stages of the Hungaroring encounter, on an afternoon when Lotus appeared to have the fastest car.

Sam Michael, McLaren's sporting director, concedes that it was only the fact that Hamilton was able to control his rivals that allowed it to win the final grand prix before the summer break.

"Lotus were definitely on us for the whole race," Michael told AUTOSPORT. "I think they really have a good race car and we basically only beat them because of qualifying and the fact that we beat them in the pits.

"If they had qualified well and qualified in front of us then, because it is difficult to overtake here, I think you would really struggle to beat them."

One of Lotus' best chances to overhaul McLaren was at either of the pitstops, but Michael reckoned its rival would always try and use its car's better tyre degradation characteristics in the fight for victory.

"We felt they would always go long because that is where their advantage is," he said. "Their advantage is in long run pace and having lower deg.

"They probably knew that we could beat them in the pits, so it worked well. But definitely we thought they would be pretty hard work in the last stint, and Lewis drove very well to keep Kimi off him."