A Shot of Adrenaline

It had been touted as an opportunity for an emotional home victory, and a fitting homecoming for the most successful rookie in Formula One history.

And when McLaren's Lewis Hamilton took an unexpected pole position with a dramatic last-minute effort during Saturday qualifying, it seemed as if the predictions for Sunday's British Grand Prix were coming to fruition.

Former champion Nigel Mansell claimed that the adrenaline boost of racing in front of the British crowd gave him an advantage of half a second per lap over his rivals.

Going into the Silverstone weekend, Lewis Hamilton might have been counting on the 'Mansell effect' to extend his championship lead. But what Mansell never mentioned is that home GPs are rarely happy hunting grounds for the sport's champions.

Three-time champion Niki Lauda won just once in Austria from twelve attempts. The Brazilian triumvirate of Emerson Fittipaldi, Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna scooped eight titles between them - but only six Brazilian GP wins in 32 attempts. Even Michael Schumacher won a relatively modest (by his standards) four German GPs from his fourteen starts.

In terms of British drivers, success on home soil is even rarer. The Hills tried 25 times, with Damon's win in 1994 as the only success (although Graham did take four successive podium finishes from 1963-66).

In the early 1960s John Surtees went one better, recording five podiums - but still failed to win after twelve starts. James Hunt had a single career British GP victory, and Stirling Moss and Jackie Stewart managed a pair each.

Nigel Mansell backed up his words with four wins from twelve starts, but the undeniable local hero of British GP history was Jim Clark.

He and Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio are the only two to have topped the 50 percent mark on home soil, with Clark taking five wins from eight attempts and Fangio four from six.

Honourable mention must go to Alain Prost, with six victories and a further five podium finishes in France. During his 13-year career, Prost only failed to finish on the podium twice in front of his home crowd.

The conclusion is that home soil advantage is not the boost that Mansell claimed. Winning a home GP once in every half-dozen starts is the norm (even for the champions); winning more than one in four is exceptional.

However, the historical averages will be cold comfort for Hamilton. At Silverstone, he had a bigger advantage than most drivers have enjoyed historically - track position for the start, a competitive car and flawless reliability. Even discounting the 'Mansell effect', second position should have been his lowest expectation.

By the end of Sunday's race, the rookie could consider himself fortunate to have maintained his streak of eight podium finishes. If Felipe Massa's Ferrari hadn't stalled on the grid, Hamilton would have been easy pickings for the charging Brazilian.

Instead of providing an adrenaline shot for the 22-year-old McLaren star, the British Grand Prix injected new life into the championship situation. The race was not won by the adrenaline surge of an all-out qualifying lap, but by the race-long grind of superior strategy.

Since F1 returned from North America, there has been a marked change in the development of races. For the first seven GPs of the year, it was a very simple equation - whoever led into the first turn went on to win the race, usually stopping a couple of laps before the chasing pack.

Lewis Hamilton pits from the lead of the British Grand Prix © LAT

In both France and Britain, Raikkonen's victories have been classic Schumacher-style strategies, sacrificing track position early on to run a crucial few extra low-fuel laps.

The early season strategy of starting light suited Hamilton perfectly. For all of the first seven races, he finished in a position equal to or higher than his grid position. In both France and Britain, for the first time in F1, he has given up places during the race.

Even with the steep fuel weight penalty at Silverstone, both Raikkonen and Alonso leapfrogged the earlier-stopping Hamilton with surprising ease.

Raikkonen in particular will be hoping that the tyre wear/fuel weight balance shifts in favour of a heavier strategy at the remaining circuits on the calendar.

Raikkonen has traditionally been more comfortable running longer for the first stint. When forced to run light to try and gain track position or rattle the front runners (such as at Monza last year), he hasn't been at his most effective.

With BMW falling back incrementally from the leading teams, and less likely to impede Raikkonen during the race, the Finn will be content to let his rivals play the role of hare.

As long as he has clear track ahead when they pit earlier, he will back himself to make the difference. Nevertheless, he will rue the fact that Suzuka (with its very high fuel weight penalty) is no longer on the F1 calendar.

Hamilton himself blamed his lack of pace on a poor set-up and balance problems with the car, rather than his fuel strategy. Either way, his rivals will take heart from the young Briton's only disappointing performance to date.

Monza, Spa-Francorchamps, Istanbul, Shanghai and Interlagos all lie ahead, and finding the optimum set-up can be tricky at each. If Hamilton had been spending countless hours in the McLaren simulator before, he will be even more glued to it now.

For the next two weeks though, Hamilton's thoughts must inevitably centre on the bitter double blow of not just failing the home crowd's expectations, but of being so comprehensively out-raced in the process.

Ordinarily, a podium finish is a damage limitation exercise with no cause for regret, and that is exactly how it had played out for Hamilton a week earlier in France. But this was home soil, the race where the crowd can lift the driver to superhuman heights. Or so Nigel Mansell tells it.

Instead, Hamilton should dismiss the disappointment, and remember that a home victory is a rare prize. Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark and Alain Prost may have viewed home GP wins as somewhat routine. But in this area (as in most others), they were the exceptions, not the norm.

Hamilton will have plenty more opportunities to emulate their greatness.