Hamilton's act of self-harm will delight Ferrari

If Lewis Hamilton had any lingering doubts over Ferrari's approach to the fight for the 2017 Formula 1 world championship, the events of the Hungarian Grand Prix will surely utterly dispel them.

They will also create fresh uncertainty in his mind about whether his decision to hand three extra points to chief title rival Sebastian Vettel in the name of good sportsmanship might ultimately come back to haunt him.

In Hungary, Ferrari finished one-two for the first time since May's Monaco GP, with Sebastian Vettel again leading team-mate Kimi Raikkonen home. After Monaco, where Vettel came from behind to beat Raikkonen on a track where overtaking is near-impossible, Hamilton declared it was "clear Ferrari have chosen their number one driver".

In Monte Carlo Vettel beat Raikkonen by staying out after the sister Ferrari pitted then unleashing superior pace held in reserve through the opening stint. Ferrari denied it of course, but it seemed apparent the Scuderia sacrificed Raikkonen's chances of victory for the 'greater good' of Vettel's title ambitions, on a weekend when Mercedes - and Hamilton in particular - struggled.

In Hungary, this approach appeared to manifest itself again, as Vettel clung on to win in an ill-handling car, while Raikkonen - who came into the weekend trailing by 79 points - played the role of faithful rear-gunner and protected the championship leader from a Mercedes attack, despite Raikkonen feeling he had the pace to win the race himself.

Mercedes has tried to maintain a balanced approach to its two drivers, certainly since Valtteri Bottas started winning races to force his way into title contention. But with Ferrari leading the way and Bottas unable to threaten the Prancing Horse's superiority from third place in Budapest, Mercedes handed Hamilton a chance to break Ferrari's stranglehold on this race by switching positions with 25 laps to go.

Hamilton agreed to hand the place back to Bottas should he not be able to make an impression on Raikkonen, and stayed true to his word by slowing down on the last of the 70 laps and letting the sister Mercedes back through at the final corner.

For this gesture of good faith, Hamilton received plenty of plaudits. And yet, in such a tight season as this, where every point won or lost against Vettel's Ferrari is likely to matter, Hamilton's honour - and Mercedes' egalitarian approach to its drivers - could cost Hamilton dearly.

If Hamilton loses the world championship to Vettel by three points, he will look back on the Hungarian Grand Prix as a decisive moment in the final reckoning.

"In my mind I want to win the championship the right way," Hamilton said. "I don't know whether that will come back to bite me in the backside or not. But I said at the beginning of the year I want to win it in the right way, and I think today was the right way to do things.

"The team were in a difficult position. Today shows, hopefully, that I am a man of my word, and also that I am a team player - just as much a part of this team as anyone. Today shows unity. In life, if you do good things, good things do come back to you, so hopefully in the future it will pay dividends."

Of course, none of this would have mattered had Ferrari 'breezed' to victory in the way Hamilton predicted after qualifying. The short straights, high temperatures and lower-speed cornering challenges of the Hungaroring played to Ferrari's strengths and allowed it to enjoy its most competitive grand prix since Monaco.

Vettel has been saying for a while that Ferrari is stronger than Mercedes in the corners. That capability comes without such a penalty on circuits like this, where drag is not important. Bottas feels Mercedes is still lacking with its high-downforce set-up and it simply could not make up the difference with its engine advantage here.

Once both Ferraris had made it into Turn 1 safely, with Bottas forced to defend position from Max Verstappen's fast-starting Red Bull rather than attack the cars ahead, the race looked to be in Vettel's pocket. But that didn't count on a mysterious handling problem on Vettel's car that materialised from the earliest stages.

"I felt already there was something not right when we dropped the car on the grid," said Vettel, who complained of his car's steering "hanging to the left".

"During the opening laps I felt it wasn't right, but it didn't impact too much because it was only small. Towards the end of the stint it started to ramp up and gradually get worse.

"I was talking through the problem and they told me to avoid the kerbs, which I was doing already, but on a track where you use the kerbs nearly on every corner it's obviously compromising your performance."

Vettel led Raikkonen by almost 3.5 seconds at the end of lap 13 of 70; by the time Vettel made his sole pitstop on lap 32, that gap was down to little more than 1.2s. Raikkonen stayed out only one more lap before making his own stop for soft Pirellis, but felt he could have got ahead of Vettel by running longer.

It's telling that in Monaco Ferrari gave Vettel the opportunity to do just that and jump Raikkonen in the pits, despite trailing him through the first stint and Raikkonen losing pace as that stint wore on. In Hungary, Raikkonen was not afforded the opportunity to reciprocate, despite being "a lot faster than me for the majority of the race", according to Vettel.

Raikkonen's in-lap was 1.612s quicker than Vettel's, the pitstop three tenths quicker too, but Vettel remained ahead when Raikkonen emerged from the pits and it seems that's the way Ferrari wanted it to be.

"Once he went in I had very good speed," said Raikkonen, who felt his car was handling well and "definitely" had the pace to win the race. "I could have stayed longer out. I guess there are reasons.

"Valtteri went a lot faster with the fresh tyres so the team asked me to come in. I had good speed on the in-lap so I wanted to stay out longer, but I have to trust what the team is telling me - they see the big picture."

This was arguably the perfect outcome for Ferrari and Vettel's big picture: maximum potential points for the constructors' championship, Vettel's hobbled car leading, Raikkonen's stronger one ready to protect Vettel if Mercedes mounted a challenge in the second half of the race.

That challenge came once Bottas moved aside for Hamilton at Turn 1 at the start of lap 46, following Mercedes' efforts to re-establish two-way communication with its drivers, after a cracked cable took down its systems on the pitwall early on and forced it to "fly blind", according to team boss Toto Wolff.

Though stressful for the team, it's unlikely this problem made a huge difference to the outcome of the race.

Hamilton spent his first stint trapped behind Verstappen's Red Bull, so would have been stuck at its pace even if Mercedes had opted to extend his first stint. Bottas was trapped in no man's land between Verstappen and the Ferraris.

Mercedes might have been able to engineer its late-race position swap sooner, but given Hamilton was unable to do anything about Raikkonen, it ultimately made little odds.

Bottas homed gradually in on the Ferraris early in the second stint, as Vettel managed his steering problem, but failed to make an impression. Once Hamilton was allowed through, the Ferraris picked up pace - by roughly a second per lap - in response, Vettel taking more risk despite his difficulties.

Hamilton's chase failed to subvert Ferrari hegemony at the front, but it did eventually drop Bottas, who lapped quickly enough to sit within two seconds of Hamilton's gearbox at the end of lap 56 but 10 laps later was nearly eight seconds behind.

"I struggled more with the backmarkers," Bottas explained. "They [the leaders] were a three-car train - they got pretty smoothly through. For me, for some reason, [the backmarkers] always were in front of me for one or one-and-a-half laps, and with a couple of those I lost one or two seconds each and then also lost the rhythm a bit.

"This track is a lot about the rhythm in the race. That's why I lost some time and why the gap to Lewis was in the end bigger than I was hoping for."

This wouldn't have mattered too much save for the pesky presence of Verstappen's Red Bull looming in Bottas's mirrors. Having waited until the end of lap 42 to make his own stop for fresh tyres - the last of the leading group to pit had been Raikkonen on lap 33 - Verstappen hunted Bottas down relentlessly.

He took 17s out of the Mercedes driver in 23 laps - helped in part by Vettel's go-slow approach at the front - and remarkably finished just 13.276s away from victory, despite serving a 10s penalty for taking out team-mate Daniel Ricciardo on the first lap.

That made the job of re-reversing positions between Hamilton and Bottas - which Hamilton engineered by backing right off on the last lap to allow Bottas through at the final corner - quite tricky for Mercedes.

But not as difficult as the decision itself, which allowed Vettel to extend his championship lead over Hamilton to 14 points rather than 11 heading into F1's summer break.

"We discussed the risks of Max being too close and potentially ending up like fools," Wolff said.

"That was a long debate with all the pros and cons and finally we decided for the procedure we went for, with the support of Lewis.

"It was a very sportsman-like behaviour - similar to what Valtteri did before [in Bahrain] - and certainly a very difficult call for the team; extremely difficult for the team, and very difficult for him [Hamilton]."

Mercedes is clearly minded to maintain the approach it has adopted throughout F1's V6 era, namely that it won't overtly favour one driver over the other unless there is zero chance for one of them to win the title.

Wolff even suggested Mercedes would prefer to sacrifice this championship to Vettel rather than potentially wreck the internal harmony at Mercedes by altering this mindset.

"These values made us win six championships [three drivers' and three constructors' titles] and it is going to make us win more championships in the years to come," Wolff said.

"It cost us three points and it can potentially cost us the championship - we are perfectly conscious about that, but nevertheless it is how the drivers and the team operates.

"We stick to what we say; and if the consequences are as much as losing the championship we will take it. But longer term we will be winning much more races and much more championships with that approach than doing it the other way around.

"It was a tough call to make. Believe me, it is probably the most difficult call we had to make in the last five years.

"We have seen the backlash of decisions that were ruthless and cold-blooded and the effect it had on the brand. You could say 'screw it, it still won them the championships, who cares? They are down in the history books'.

"But if I come back to what I think, what the purpose of us being here is, it is doing the right things and winning in the right way. And sometimes doing it the right way and standing by your values is fucking tough. And it was today. I feel crap."

It's a testament to Hamilton's character that he chose to follow this creed and sacrifice his personal ambitions for the sake of team unity - follow his heart rather than the "cut-throat" mind and let Bottas back through rather than bank the extra points for himself.

Hamilton is often compared to his hero Ayrton Senna, but Paddy Lowe says Hamilton lacks the late Brazilian legend's ruthlessness - the sort of ruthlessness Vettel displayed when ignoring 'Multi 21' team orders to take victory in the 2013 Malaysian GP from Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber.

The 2017 Hungarian GP was clear evidence that Hamilton is not prepared to go to the same places Vettel has occasionally visited during his own rise to become a multiple champion and living legend of grand prix racing.

Hamilton deserves enormous credit for his impeccable display of sportsmanship, but he may live to regret such noble sentiment should Vettel win this championship by a narrow margin.