Why Hamilton is off his game

Has Lewis Hamilton had a good or a bad start to the 2018 Formula 1 season? This is a far more difficult question to answer than it first seems, since he has many reasons to be delighted with what has happened so far despite his analogy about piecing together a golf round of pars and bogeys after winning the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

If you're not convinced, it's all a question of perspective, because from one angle it has been pretty poor. Aside from during the Australian GP - which he had in the bag before a coincidence of virtual safety car timing and Mercedes miscalculation handed victory to Sebastian Vettel - Hamilton has looked ill-at-ease with the 2018 Mercedes. The combination of Hamilton and W09 hardly looks like a world-beating one, and there are several clear reasons for this.

From another angle, it has been an outstanding start to the season. Why? Because he leads the points table and has finished on the podium three times in the four races to date. Even though you can legitimately argue that either Valtteri Bottas or Vettel should be up top, they aren't. What Hamilton has done here is live up to the old adage that you win world championships on your bad days.

Every other driver in the top three teams has thrown away points with errors, and while Hamilton hasn't been mistake free, such as when he went off-track twice in Baku, he has not compromised a final result.

Hamilton is not celebrating his position, and in the aftermath of a Baku victory he described as based on fortune, he spoke eloquently about how it felt to take a win he believed Bottas deserved.

Reading those quotes in isolation it's easy to dismiss them as the trite humblebrag of a winner, but Hamilton was being sincere and reflective in what he said, even if that doesn't necessarily come across to those who weren't there when he said it and enjoy taking pot shots nonetheless.

The contrast between the eloquent, comfortable Hamilton after winning in Baku and the one that spoke after struggling to fourth in China was stark.

In Shanghai, his answers were short, often disjointed and he was struggling to reconcile what was going on with his expectations of himself. In Baku, he talked about not living up to his standards, but he was very clear about what needed to be done to be able to hold on to his championship-leading position.

"Being in the lead of the world championship is great, but if we were to continue on the current trajectory it would need tricky races like this to keep us in [the game]," he said. "There's only been two weird races where it's kept us in the mix, but you can't rely on those for the next 17.

"We need ultimate performance and confidence in the car. I've got pace within me, and the car's got the pace within it, but we're not unlocking it. Both of them are not being intertwined, in perfect synergy, to extract that perfect equation. So, that's what we're working towards."

When Hamilton can't quite be confident that the grip is under him, he's not the same driver

History suggests that is what will happen. The underlying pace of the car is real, and nobody can seriously doubt Hamilton's strength. There have been suggestions that contract discussions have proved to be a distraction, and maybe that's true or maybe it's a red herring, but you'd bet on Hamilton being able to express himself were the car to allow him to.

You can see, out on track, that he's not always at ease with the Mercedes. Having watched from trackside during testing and on all four grand prix weekends, you can see clearly when things aren't quite right. And boring as it is, the key is the tyres.

When the car is working, he is a quite brilliant exponent of turning in with confidence and rotating the rear to perfection. When Hamilton can't quite be confident that the grip is under him, he's not the same driver. By contrast, Bottas is one of the best out there in those situations and would probably be 'green track world champion', were such a thing to exist.

Mercedes has struggled at times with both warm-up of the front tyres and overheating of the rears. Hamilton hasn't always had the necessary front end to turn in as he wants, or the stability to allow him to control the rotation of the rear to perfection.

When the axles are in balance, he drives beautifully - just look at the onboard footage of his final sector in qualifying in Melbourne. When the capriciousness of the car doesn't allow him to, he's more hesitant.

Hamilton described himself as not being "entirely neat" with the car in Baku. And that was manifested by the body language of the car on track. No matter what driving style, you always look for drivers who are able to turn in decisively, keep the car on a precise line and feed the throttle in. Hamilton looked able to do that in testing, but less so during the race weekends.

And if things aren't working, let's say the front end isn't responding, then Hamilton leans towards overdriving to try to make it work. That's what makes life more difficult for him, but it's hardly making him slow.

Hamilton has had ups and downs in form throughout his career, and these troughs have cropped up in the past. The word is perhaps misleading, as Hamilton on a bad day is still more potent than many grand prix drivers, but the difference between Hamilton struggling and Hamilton riding the crest of a wave is unmissable.

When in the latter mode, he's crushingly brilliant, when in the former, merely very good. The roll he went on after winning last year's British Grand Prix is a case in point.

Remember, last season didn't exactly start brilliantly. In the early stages, he had similar problems with getting and keeping the tyres in the window, and Bottas was looking every bit his equal.

Come Silverstone, that changed dramatically and Hamilton took off. When that mood takes him, as it often does and surely will at some point this season, if he and the team get the car working as it should, he will take some beating.

To assume there is some underlying Hamilton malaise to capitalise on is dangerous. He's 33, more settled in himself, and the old criticisms of him spending too much time jet-setting around the place enjoying a 'Hollywood' lifestyle don't stand up.

It's true there have been times when he has had on-track struggles that seem to be connected to goings-on off track. In 2011, his worst season in F1, he made a litany of mistakes (many of them involving hitting Felipe Massa's Ferrari) and there were times when he seemed an almost ghostly presence.

There is the possibility that after three titles in four seasons, some of the hunger has gone

Within his McLaren team, there was a feeling he was overextending himself. But there's no obvious sign of that here, despite it being a tediously popular go-to criticism for those who dislike a life and personal style that really shouldn't be considered controversial.

Sometimes a driver is struggling to deliver their best for on-track reasons. What we've seen this year is entirely consistent with what we saw in 2017.

Some question whether he's struggling because he's more focused on snapping at the team over the radio or complaining about the car not being right, but let's not confuse cause and effect here. That's a consequence of the struggles, not the root, and most drivers react like that.

There is the possibility that, after three titles in four seasons, some of the hunger has gone. Again, there's no obvious evidence of that happening to Hamilton but it does occur in elite sports stars. But if that was the case, wouldn't he have faded more dramatically in Baku after the big lock-up took him out of the victory battle?

He kept plugging away, and the race came to him. And after the race, one of his main topics of conversation was that he and the team need to turn this around. Hardly the words of a coaster who doesn't care.

It could of course also be a case of the famous world championship hangover.

Mika Hakkinen struggled to lift himself at the start of 1999 after winning the '98 title before getting into his stride. He had the same problem in 2000 and while he fought for the title, never really got his zest back, retiring from F1 at the end of 2001. Climbing the same mountain again and again can lose its lustre.

But if anything, the opposite might be true. Hamilton has spoken of the "exciting prospect" of matching Juan Manuel Fangio's tally of titles this year, and knows he's got a serious fight on his hands to do that. With the differences between the big three teams smaller than in previous years, the driver's performance or lack thereof, mistakes or lack thereof, can have a big influence in terms of the points scored. Hamilton knows that whoever wins this title is going to have to earn it, and we know he thrives on close competition.

That's what makes what Hamilton has done so far this year encouraging for him. It's gone badly, yet there he is at the top of the world championship.

Yes, luck has played a part, but bear in mind that to win "a lottery", which is what Hamilton described the Baku race as, you've got to be in it in the first place. And by picking up a win, a second place, a third and a fourth in this year's four races so far he has kept himself firmly in contention.

Vettel, by contrast, seems to be driving extremely well across the board. It took Ferrari a while to get on top of its 2018 car concept, but now it has done so he's on form and driving well. He can't be blamed for being clobbered by Max Verstappen in China, but did squander points in Baku.

And Bottas? He's a classy driver but has yet to prove he can live with Hamilton and Vettel in the arena of sustained excellence. Of course, he might yet do so this season, but unlike the other two he's yet to prove it.

Mercedes and Hamilton will get it right this season, although given how close things are it's going to swing from team to team depending on conditions and track layout. There will be plenty of very strong days for Hamilton, and if he combines that with continuing to pick up good points when the going is tougher, he's going to be in very good shape come the end of the season.

And if he does win the title, the 70 points he's banked so far will look far more significant than the difficulties he's had in the early stages.