MPH: Mark Hughes on...

Amid all the Lewis Hamilton clamour, it's easy to forget that McLaren had two race drivers this year. Heikki Kovalainen's season has been a disappointment, to him especially. He could have had a much stronger end to the year, and the perception would then have been different.

Had his engine not let him down in Japan, he could well have won, and had he been free to drive his own race in Brazil rather than protecting Hamilton's position, he certainly could have figured much more prominently there. Had his front tyres not been mounted the wrong way round in China, he'd have looked much better there too.

But that still doesn't get around explaining his indifferent form for much of the rest of the year.

Looking at it in more detail, his first and second half-seasons were disappointing in quite different ways.

In the first half he was very often as quick in qualifying as Hamilton, once fuel loads were taken into account. But his speed was coming from a driving style and set-up that worked the tyres too hard, making him slow through a stint.

The McLaren was a very aggressive car on its rubber, deliberately so. It was this that allowed it to have instant qualifying pace, that allowed its drivers to find their own gaps in traffic on their out-laps but still have the tyres up to pressure and temperature as they began their flying laps.

The downside was that unless you were very careful not to overwork the tyres in the race, you'd run them too hot and thereby take all the energy from them too soon.

Shorter corner, or higher speed?

Imagine a slow-medium-speed corner at the end of a long straight. Hamilton would run straight, right up to the point that represented the best geometrical line through the corner, brake hard, then quite abruptly make the turn, asking a lot of the car all at once. But it responded; it had a balance that allowed the front end to point just where he steered it. Kovalainen would prefer to begin the turn slightly before the geometric ideal, introducing the lateral load more progressively, trading it off against the braking.

The fact that you're braking and turning at the same time helps make the car turn more, thereby overcoming the more shallow initial entry, and as you release the brakes you can smoothly transfer to the power-on phase. It's all about momentum; it allows you to carry speed for longer, your minimum speed is higher and you can get on the gas earlier. But it makes the corner longer.

Which is quicker: making the corner shorter but with a lower minimum speed; or making it longer but with a higher minimum speed? All depends on the car and the tyre.

For a car with a responsive front end, but on a standard control tyre that isn't particularly grippy, where the grip is instantly available but cannot be retained for long - the McLaren, in other words - the first method (Hamilton's) is much better. With a grippier tyre, or a car that didn't have as responsive a front end (like last year's Renault that Heikki drove so well), then the second technique would be better.

The McLaren's balance meant Kovalainen's technique was wasted. Heikki wasn't taking advantage of that instant grip, was loading up the tyre too long and, furthermore, because he was early on the throttle, his rear tyres were getting hotter and wearing faster.

Into the second half of the year, Heikki and the team developed his style and set-up away from that and succeeded in giving the tyres an easier time. But with that went his qualifying pace. He could no longer drive intuitively, and was having to think about his technique all the time - the last thing you need when you're trying to wring the last couple of tenths from the car's neck.

Next year could give payback

Ironically, Kovalainen's struggles this year have contributed to Hamilton winning the title, as Lewis lost far fewer points to his teammate than was the case with Felipe Massa at Ferrari. But what about the move to the slick-shod cars of 2009? Although Bridgestone is under instructions from the FIA not to make the slicks super-grippy, filling in the grooves puts proportionately more rubber on the fronts than the wider rears.

It just might be that this is enough to switch the more appropriate driving style Kovalainen's way, in which case he'd be freed up to drive as he naturally wants to.

It's interesting that, when Hamilton first tested the McLaren on grippy, tyre-war Michelins in the close season of 2006, he was not startlingly fast in relation to everyone else. The moment they switched to the less-grippy control Bridgestones, he was devastating - and teammate Fernando Alonso was struggling.

Hamilton is probably good enough to adapt and still prove fearsomely fast, but he should have a bit more in-team competition next year.