A Favour Returned

At a drenched Silverstone two weeks ago, Ferrari handed rivals McLaren an easy victory when they opted to disregard weather predictions and send Kimi Raikkonen out on worn intermediate tyres after his first pit-stop.

During Sunday's German Grand Prix at Hockenheim, it seemed that McLaren were intent on returning the favour via an odd tactical blunder of their own.

The reasoning behind McLaren's decision is now well known: had the Safety Car not stayed out for so long, their strategists calculated that Hamilton had sufficient laps to build a lead of the 23 or so seconds required for his final pitstop.

While that explanation would hold up to stopwatch scrutiny, the strategy would also have required Hamilton to drive like a dervish during the few light fuel laps at his disposal. It was a risk that the team didn't need to take, especially when they already held the all-important track position they needed.

If Hamilton had pitted at the same time as all the other front-runners, he would (barring an unforeseen problem in the pit-stop) have rejoined the track in the lead - first into the pits, first out. Rejoining the race at the front, fuelled to the finish and driving the fastest car, would have necessitated no heroics at all.

It would have only required that Hamilton avoid being overtaken by Ferrari's Felipe Massa on track - an eventuality that looked laughably improbable all afternoon.

It's understandable for a team to gamble on an unconventional strategy when their driver does not have track position, is slower than his rivals, or stuck in traffic. But gambling when their driver is not only leading but visibly faster than every other car was quite inexplicable.

Nevertheless, the decision did have three spin-off benefits. The first is that Hamilton's teammate Heikki Kovalainen (unlike Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen) did not lose positions from having to queue behind his team leader in the pits.

While that helped McLaren's cause, Kovalainen's race fortunes were not the team's focus. They were, unabashedly and understandably, quick to ask him to pull over and allow Hamilton past once the team leader had rejoined the action.

The second benefit was that Hamilton had a shorter final stint on the soft tyres. If the team had any doubts about the softer tyre's durability, they were unfounded. Renault's Nelsinho Piquet ran 32 laps, almost half the race distance, on a set of Bridgestone softer tyres - and still had the pace at the end to hold off Massa with ease.

McLaren may wear their tyres quicker than Ferrari do, and Hamilton may take more out of his tyres than Kovalainen does, but that is only when the Englishman needs to push hard. At times on Sunday, he was up to a second per lap faster than anyone else. Reining that back to just a tenth or two faster per lap would have preserved both the softer tyres and the race lead with minimal risk and effort.

Lewis Hamilton overtakes Felipe Massa © XPB

The third benefit - and one which wouldn't have factored into the team's thinking at any stage - was that the strategy gave the race spectators some much-welcomed tension and excitement in what had been a processional race until that point.

Although even that sense of anticipation was short-lived. After Kovalainen had dutifully pulled over to let Hamilton past, both Massa and Piquet offered only token resistance.

It would be harsh to say that they made it too easy for Hamilton, because neither had any hope of maintaining track position ahead of the flying McLaren. For both, the prospect of a podium finish was worth a lot more than squabbling vainly over a position they knew they couldn't maintain.

For Massa, the reward is that he stays figuratively on Hamilton's gearbox in the championship race, only a scant four points behind. However, if recent form is anything to go by, the points differential is misleading.

Hamilton has, over the past two race weekends, achieved a level of dominance over his rivals that hasn't been seen since Michael Schumacher's heyday. More importantly, it is dominance that has been absent from the past two championship campaigns.

During 2007, all of the four main contenders - Hamilton, Raikkonen, Massa and Fernando Alonso - indulged in a thrilling Formula One equivalent of musical chairs, both on the race podiums and in the championship table. Each took his turn in the spotlight, fell back and then came good again, with none of the four ever giving the impression that he was capable of sustained dominance.

And so it continued in 2008 - until Silverstone. Hamilton's winning streak has only been two races which, in itself, is not that significant. Raikkonen, Massa and Hamilton himself all achieved back to back victories during 2007.

Instead, it's the magnitude of the victories that has been remarkable. Hamilton hasn't squeaked out marginal and tightly-controlled wins, like so many of the 2007 Grands Prix produced. He has revelled in his new-found form and given the impression that, no matter what handicaps or obstacles stand in his path, all will be brushed aside effortlessly.

In today's F1, a driver rejoining the track in fifth position after the final pit-stops shouldn't have a prayer of taking the victory. On Sunday, none of the four drivers in front had a prayer of holding Hamilton at bay, such was the gulf in raw speed.

Lewis Hamilton celebrates in parc ferme © XPB

No doubt, much of it has flowed from McLaren's mid-season development and rapid improvement since France. And, if Heikki Kovalainen was following Hamilton home for 1-2 finishes, it could be dismissed as mere mechanical superiority. Yet the second McLaren is still only on par with the two Ferraris. The difference, at the moment, is Lewis Hamilton.

This is Hamilton's sophomore year, notoriously the most difficult year in many F1 drivers' careers. True to expectations, Hamilton did suffer a slump of sorts early in the season, culminating in the silly pit-lane error at Canada and a ruined race in France as the consequence.

Is the worst of the sophomore blues yet to come for the new championship leader? Or has he, as in so many other aspects of his career, merely truncated the time frame to the bare minimum, compressing a year's worth of troubles into just a handful of races?

His championship rivals will be hoping fervently that it isn't the latter. However, the prospects aren't rosy for them. For Ferrari, the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better, as the next race in Hungary will suit both McLaren and Hamilton perfectly.

Just as at Monaco, Hamilton also has a score to settle, and a bad memory to erase, in Hungary, the scene of the infamous pit-lane blocking incident by teammate Alonso during qualifying in 2007. Earlier this season, Hamilton made amends for his 2007 disappointment at Monaco. On current form, he's a sure-fire bet to repeat the improvement at Hungary.