The last time Hamilton three-wheeled to victory

"It was almost impossible to drive," said Lewis Hamilton. "It was so hard."

He'd dominated the race, moved himself into a firm championship lead, and had done so with a damaged car. But this wasn't the 2020 British Grand Prix and Hamilton wasn't driving a Mercedes W11.

This was the opening race of the 2003 Formula Renault 2.0 UK championship at Croft.

"There was a race when I was in Formula Renault, at Croft," Hamilton recalled after he'd hustled his hobbled Mercedes through a dramatic final tour to take victory in last weekend's race at Silverstone.

"The rear suspension, there's two rear springs, and one had snapped off and so I remember driving through the corners, through the left-handers, with one wheel in the air," the now six-time world champion explained in the post-British GP press conference.

"And through the right-handers it was fine, something like that. That was a race where I was in the lead and I managed to still win the race - just. I don't even know how I managed to make that one work. So, that was a little bit similar to today but of course it was more extreme today and the cost was obviously a lot higher."

There are two key differences between the race won by the then 18-year-old Hamilton and the 35-year-old race winner from last weekend. The blowouts at Silverstone, we now know were caused by the tyres being run under the extreme forces from F1's fastest-ever cars over unusually long stints, per Pirelli's investigation, were devastating.

PLUS: The crucial factors that took Hamilton to the brink of disaster

Hamilton's W11 couldn't have continued in the same state had the puncture not happened on the last lap. At Croft, it was a suspension issue that Hamilton got to grips with in his Tatuus FR2000. And had the race at Silverstone been even a few corners longer, Max Verstappen would've whipped the win away. Go back 17 years and Hamilton hung on for 14 laps to defy Motaworld Racing driver Mike Spencer.

"Effectively there was no suspension on one side of the car," Hamilton said in the 17 July 2003 issue of Autosport magazine. "It was almost impossible to drive, it was so hard."

Just as the late punctures last weekend struck the fortunes of Valtteri Bottas and Carlos Sainz Jr, then Manor Motorsport driver Hamilton wasn't the only FRenault racer to have suspension drama at Croft in that race. James Rossiter - former Honda, Super Aguri and Force India F1 test driver, now DS Techeetah Formula E reserve driver and a Super GT race winner - had his rear suspension collapse on the grid.

"The rear suspension, there's two rear springs, and one had snapped off and so I remember driving through the corners, through the left-handers, with one wheel in the air"Lewis Hamilton

Despite the suspension issue, Hamilton fended off Spencer's attentions - the gap between them at one point down to just 0.3s - and won by 1.4s.

Then, after a gap admittedly considerably shorter than the one-week break between the British and 70th Anniversary GPs that is currently taking place, he was at it all over again at the same circuit. Although of course, the FRenault championship was supposed to feature several double-headers and not have them added in out of necessity a la this year's F1 campaign.

The second race was "even more processional", per Autosport's report. "Hamilton converting pole into a healthy lead, which he never looked remotely like losing, especially when he was enjoying the benefits of a car that wasn't falling apart."

This time he won by 4.47s over Rossiter, his suspension also repaired, with the field behind including Paul di Resta, Susie Wolff (then Susie Stoddart), Alex Lloyd, Fabian Coulthard, Sergio Jimenez and Mike Conway.

Autosport's report ended in the following fashion: "Several drivers had better weekends than they were used to, but Croft was all about one man who has now got the bit firmly between his teeth and is rapidly closing in on the title after assuming a 19-point leading the standings."

There's quite a bit that's similar with the current standings in the 2020 drivers' championship, with Hamilton now enjoying a 30-point buffer over Bottas. In 2003, he went on to take six additional victories, ending with a total of 10 - including two more double-header sweeps on Brands Hatch Indy and at Donington - and the title.

Right now, obviously, we cannot know how the 2020 F1 season will turn out, or how Hamilton will further add to his career stats in grand prix racing. So here it's worth reflecting on just how he took his most recent statistical triumph, and managed to three-wheel his way to victory for the second time in his remarkable career.

Although the cameras initially picked up Hamilton touring slowly down Silverstone's old pit-straight opposite the National paddock, and replayed his moment at Luffield a few seconds before, it was as he ran down the Wellington Straight that the tyre deflated.

"I was constantly looking at the tyre," Hamilton said regarding the final tour. "It was quite smooth and was working really well through Turn 3 [Village] - the thing was turning fine. So, I was trying to gauge just how worn it was but I didn't have any feeling of it being particularly worn.

"And then it was just down the straight the thing [went], you could feel the RPM as I was full speed. The RPM drops as you start getting extra friction from the tyre as it's not rolling at the same speed and you feel the balance shift to the left. It was a bit of panic for a second and I nearly didn't make it round Turn 7 [Luffield] but after that I managed to make it through all the corners."

Mercedes first told Hamilton the gap to the charging Verstappen was 30s as he exited Luffield. When he got to Copse it was 25s. At Magotts 20s, Stowe 10s - after he'd steered considerably to the right to keep his machine going forwards as he ran down the Hangar Straight. And then when he arrived at Vale and Club it was nine seconds, and then seven and he was home, afterwards able to bask in the glow of a victory so nearly swallowed by rapidly-looming defeat.

Unlike his triumph at Croft, which had been a race-long battle, excellent in its own right, the last-lap nature of bringing a devastated car package to the finish was a unique moment in Hamilton's F1 career.

"I just noticed the shape just shift a little bit," Hamilton said when he had climbed from his car and inspected the ruined tyre.

"And that was definitely a heart-in-the-mouth kind of feeling because I wasn't quite sure if it had gone down until I hit the brakes and you could see that the tyre was falling off the rim.

"And then it was just down the straight [the tyre went], you could feel the RPM as I was full speed. It was a bit of panic for a second and I nearly didn't make it round Turn 7"Lewis Hamilton

"And then just driving it, trying to keep the speed up, because sometimes it will come off and brake the wing and all these different things and oh, my God, I was just praying to try to get it round and not be too slow. I nearly didn't get it round the last two corners."

He continued: "You'd be really surprised, well you may or not be surprised, but I was really chilled for some reason at the end.

"Bono [Peter Bonnington] was giving me the information about the gap, I think it was 30 seconds at one stage, and it was coming down quite quickly, and in my mind I was thinking: 'how far is it to the end of the lap?'

"But the car seemed to turn OK through Maggotts and Becketts, thankfully. I got to 15 [Stowe] and that's where it really was a bit of a struggle and I could hear the gap coming down from 19s to 10s and I remember giving it full gas from 15 to 16 [Vale] and the thing wasn't stopping. So I got to the corner with a lot of understeer and then I heard him go, 'nine', 'eight', 'seven' and I was like: 'just get back on the power and try to get the thing to turn'.

"I've definitely never experienced anything like that on a last lap and my heart probably nearly stopped. I think that's probably how cool it was because my heart nearly stopped."