A Class Apart

During the height of their rivalry during the late 1990s, Michael Schumacher and Mika Hakkinen both possessed the ability to elevate their performances at key races.

It often gave the impression that the two rivals were in equal and dominant machinery, while their respective team-mates (Eddie Irvine and David Coulthard at the time) were saddled with completely different and much slower equipment.

In an era where mechanical differences usually trump driver talent in determining race results, it was a priceless asset that turned both into worthy champions.

This distinctive star quality was evident again at Silverstone for Sunday's British Grand Prix - but with Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen stepping into the roles vacated by Schumacher and Hakkinen.

Going into the weekend, Ferrari's Felipe Massa had the momentum. After a victory gifted by Raikkonen's exhaust breakage in France, new championship leader Massa had every reason to believe that the Scuderia would maintain its performance advantage from Magny-Cours.

By late Saturday afternoon, McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen had abruptly dispelled that expectation, showing outstanding pace throughout the free practice and qualifying sessions to grab a dominant maiden pole position.

Mark Webber also surprised by sneaking his Red Bull onto the front row - a first for the team. As Britain awoke to a wet race on Sunday, the prospect of a first-time Grand Prix winner - whether through Kovalainen's sustained pace advantage or Webber's acknowledged maturity and ability in the wet - seemed assured.

Through all of this build-up, the two main championship protagonists, Hamilton and Raikkonen, seemed detached and distracted. After three disappointing results in a row, Raikkonen looked to have gone off the boil.

Hamilton, meanwhile, had his own distractions with a British press who (in his view) had been too harsh after his failures in Canada and France. Paired together on the second row of the grid, neither driver looked confident of victory. But that discounted their ability, like Schumacher and Hakkinen before them, to raise their game for the toughest challenges.

It took just the few hundred yards to the first corner for the qualifying results to be nullified. Both Hamilton and Raikkonen blew past the hapless Webber effortlessly, and it took a no-nonsense turn-in by Kovalainen to deny Hamilton the immediate lead through Copse.

That single moment of assertiveness was as much resistance as the maiden pole-sitter could offer. Although he led for a respectable four laps, it was obvious that Kovalainen would be no more than a temporary obstacle to the two championship rivals behind him.

Hamilton eased past on lap five and Raikkonen exploited a Kovalainen mistake to follow through five laps later. As soon as the Raikkonen pursuit of the flying Hamilton began, the race developed the makings of a classic Schumacher-Hakkinen duel.

Kimi Raikkonen overtakes Heikki Kovalainen in Vale © LAT

Once he was free of Kovalainen, Raikkonen reeled off four successive laps where he narrowed the gap to Hamilton. The Englishman responded with two blitzed laps of his own to restore the lead somewhat, before the pressure resumed with another four flying laps from the Finn - including the fastest lap of the race on lap 18.

When the two pulled off the circuit to pit simultaneously on lap 21, it was Canada all over again - Hamilton shining early on, Raikkonen clawing back the gap towards the end of the stint, and the fight coming down to a straight race between the two pit crews.

If Ferrari had heeded the warnings of impending rain like most of the other teams, there is no telling what a thrilling classic it could have been. Sadly, Ferrari had other ideas. On the day when the team most needed the tactical nous of Ross Brawn, he was making all the right decisions further down the pitlane for new employer Honda.

To be fair, Ferrari weren't the only team to send a driver back out on used intermediates, just as the fresh rainfall proved the weather predictions correct. Renault's Fernando Alonso and Red Bull's Mark Webber faced the same impossible conditions.

However, these are only marginally competitive runners who must rely on extraordinary events for any hope of winning. For them, the outside chance of pulling off an unlikely victory merits the gamble of going against conventional wisdom and weather science.

Raikkonen, by contrast, is a championship contender. The team's first priority should be to cover him and prevent disaster. When he pulled into the pits, he was in a comfortable second place and ahead of the only two drivers to lead him in the championship - team-mate Felipe Massa and BMW's Robert Kubica. Keeping him in that advantageous position was the team's minimum requirement.

Indulging in such a wild gamble, with just two extra two points as the maximum possible reward, was incomprehensible from a team of Ferrari's vast championship experience.

The failure of that strategic decision handed the race to Hamilton. In just seven laps after the pit-stop, he had already opened up a gap of thirty seconds to the struggling Raikkonen, and the contest was over. More importantly, it ratcheted up the pressure on Raikkonen as he fell back into the clutches of the pursuing pack.

From that point onwards, the two rivals had very different races. Hamilton created a masterpiece, drawing gasps of admiration from commentators and spectators alike.

Raikkonen gritted his teeth, tip-toed around the treacherous aerodrome until he could pit for suitable rubber and fuel until the end of the race, and then grimly set about restoring at least some of the points that he had lost.

Kimi Raikkonen spins on the exit of Woodcote © XPB

For Hamilton, the rewards were instant and abundant. On Saturday evening, he was seen as a troubled and overdriving competitor who had surrendered the championship lead to a silly mistake. By Sunday evening, his victory was being compared to Ayrton Senna's signature wet weather triumph at Donington Park in 1993.

While Hamilton was right in his assessment of this being his "best race ever", the extent of his superiority was slightly misleading. During the race, the impression was that Hamilton and Honda's Rubens Barrichello (the only frontrunner on full wets) were vastly quicker than the rest of the field, and trading fastest laps between them.

An analysis of the lap times reveals that, after his first pit-stop on lap 21, Hamilton was the fastest car in the field for only four of the remaining 39 laps. Just as surprisingly, Barrichello was fastest of all on only five laps.

By comparison, Massa and Torro Rosso's Sebastien Bourdais each had six laps in which they were the fastest of all, albeit late in the race when Hamilton had already tapped off.

Still, the statistic underlines a truism about wet racing: avoiding the slow laps is often more important than stringing together the quick laps.

On an afternoon when competitive lap-times see-sawed by as much as 15s from driest to wettest conditions, Hamilton had the unerring consistency to be among the top three or four all the time, even if he was rarely the fastest outright. That level of control was enough to ensure sublime victory and a win for the ages.

Raikkonen's rewards were more meagre. For the third race in a row, the Finn was left to ponder the fickleness of the fates, and what might have been.

Still, he had reason to be satisfied with his effort. He may have only scored five points. But just getting to the finish after such a strategic blunder was an accomplishment in itself. Whatever else may be going wrong around him, there is nothing wrong with Raikkonen's commitment or car control skills.

For both Hamilton and Raikkonen, there is the timely fillip that they started the race with the same equipment as their team-mates, yet appeared to be driving completely different cars when the conditions and pressure were at their worst. Like Schumacher and Hakkinen, they showed the ability to raise their game when it counted most.

That will not be hugely significant for Kovalainen. After a first season with McLaren that has been big on promise but disappointing on delivery, he is already well out of the championship frame and not expected to interfere much in the championship scrap down the stretch.

Felipe Massa spins on the exit of Woodcote © XPB

For Ferrari's Massa, Silverstone was even more disastrous than the same race last year. In 2007, Massa at least had the consolation of tearing through the field after his grid stall, and looking like a top driver in the process. On Sunday, five spins left him looking completely helpless.

Massa thrives on momentum and, even though he still shares the lead in the championship, his inability to look reasonably accomplished (let alone compete) in the wet at Silverstone will surely dent his self-confidence moving forward.

Going into the season, Raikkonen and Hamilton were joint favourites for the championship title. Not because they can dominate when things are going their way, but because they can dig deep and grind out the results when conditions work against them. It is still the biggest question mark against Massa's championship credentials.

Nevertheless, all three start from a position of parity for the next race in Germany. Although sharing the championship lead will give all three a reason to be publicly optimistic, each must be wondering privately how he missed so many opportunities and allowed the other two back into the hunt.

Conventional wisdom dictates that Hamilton's victory should swing the momentum back in his favour. But the 2008 season has made a mockery of conventional wisdom. Going into Germany, the three challengers are all square. Whether in terms of championship points, form or expectations, there is nothing to separate them.