The Perils of Assumption

Perhaps it is humanity's intrinsic desire to seek order and find patterns in the random chaos of real world events. Perhaps it is because, in a highly-engineered endeavour like Formula One racing, such precision parts should fit and work together unerringly to an established and predictable standard.

Whatever the cause, observers of the sport have always made assumptions and been confident that those projections would hold good. Senna would be fastest over a single lap in qualifying, Schumacher would prevail in the rain, Jean Alesi would pick the wrong team at the wrong time, and a particular driver or team would win a grand prix because it was 'their' track.

If there was any doubt that the 2008 season has rendered such assumptions unwise, then Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix was the clincher. One by one, the boldest and safest expectations were sent tumbling like ninepins by a field that seemed collectively intent on achieving the unexpected.

It all started routinely enough, with McLaren overhauling Ferrari's promising advantage during the opening practice session, just as expected. With Lewis Hamilton at the top of his form and McLaren locking out the front row on a circuit where overtaking is nigh impossible, the pre-race assumptions (in this, the most predictable of races) all pointed to one overwhelmingly likely winner. And it wasn't Heikki Kovalainen.

It took just the short run from the grid to the first corner to unleash the first surprise. Since entering Formula One a short 28 races ago, Lewis Hamilton has established a banker assumption: if there are places to be gained via aggressively optimistic moves around the outside of the first corner, Hamilton will be the one to gain them. He never plays the patsy. Until Hungary on Sunday.

Felipe Massa's exhilarating charge to the lead, from third on the grid, settled a score that traces back to the Malaysian GP of 2007. On that occasion, Hamilton had got the drop on pole sitter Massa from the start, and then rubbed it in by gleefully boasting how he had 'tricked' his more experienced pursuer into overshooting a corner, dropping the Brazilian to a disappointing eventual fifth place.

It may have taken Massa 26 races to extract revenge, but that single moment of self-assertion was probably the most important of his career. For it has overturned two more assumptions that prevail currently - that Felipe Massa can't win from anywhere but pole position, and that he lacks the racecraft to beat rivals in ostensibly better machinery.

As Massa led the field confidently around the opening lap, the assumptions began to flow. The ITV commentary team of James Allen and Damon Hill merely vocalised what many others were thinking - that it would take more than a lightning Ferrari start to rob Hamilton of a victory that had almost been taken for granted even before the teams arrived at the dusty Hungaroring.

If Massa managed to hang on to the lead until the first stops, it was surely only because he had gambled on an ultra-light and short first stint. Even the McLaren team urged Hamilton via the radio not to worry, and to think of the longer-term picture.

When Hamilton pitted a mere lap after the race leader and then proceeded to fall incrementally further behind the Ferrari during the second stint, that longer-term picture came into sharp focus - Massa was leading the race on merit, and there was precious little that Hamilton or McLaren could do about it.

Lewis Hamilton returns to the pits with a damaged tire © XPB

Not that it would have mattered, even if Hamilton had somehow taken the lead. When the Englishman has suffered mechanical problems in Formula One, it has almost always been tyre or wheel-related.

This was one expectation that did come to pass in Hungary, and the sight of Hamilton limping back to the pits with a punctured left front tyre will reignite the debate about whether over-driving or sheer bad luck is the source of his problems.

The post-investigation report from Bridgestone ostensibly supports the bad luck argument, that a piece of sharp debris had caused the puncture. Although Hirohide Hamashima, Bridgestone's director of motorsport tyre development, also pointed out that Hamilton had caused "many flat spots" which could exacerbate the chances of a puncture.

Whatever the cause, Hamilton's problem left Massa a comfortable leader, his final pit-stop behind him and nothing but clear track between him and the chequered flag. Cue another common assumption in current Formula One racing: that there are days when Felipe Massa is simply unbeatable and obliterates the field on his way to inevitable, serene and flawless victory.

In another era, a driver in Massa's position may have had to worry about mechanical reliability and getting the car to the finish intact. In the 1960s and 70s, it was relatively common for the leading car to expire when the race was all but won and the finish line figuratively (and sometimes literally) in sight.

But that was then and this is 2008, the era of near-bulletproof reliability. After their teething problems in Australia, Ferrari have had no further mechanical retirements in 2008. In addition, Hungary is not particularly stressful on the engine, and even less so when the driver is in Massa's position and able to control the race with a healthy lead.

Yet the unthinkable came to pass and the engine did blow. In another season, Massa's engine failure might have been the key moment that lost him the championship. But fortunes have swung so wildly in 2008 that it appears to be little more than a minor setback, and one that is easily recoverable by as early as the next race.

The result of Massa's and Hamilton's misfortunes in Hungary is that Kimi Raikkonen, who looked like a spent force after another dismal qualifying performance, emerged from the weekend as the net winner in the championship battle.

Stuck behind Fernando Alonso's Renault in the minor points placings for the first two stints, Raikkonen could only have assumed that he was destined to fall further behind the leaders in the championship table. He dared not have dreamt that he would end up leapfrogging Massa into second in the WDC table, while also closing the gap on leader Hamilton.

Kimi Raikkonen shadows Fernando Alonso © XPB

On Saturday afternoon, it would have taken a brave man to bet on a clearly demoralised and frustrated Raikkonen for the championship. Yet, after Sunday's result, former champion Damon Hill has predicted that Raikkonen is now the favourite. It's been that sort of season.

Over the summer break, Lewis Hamilton will have time to consider his approach to the final phase of this season, and to reflect on how he lost the championship over the same phase last season.

Aggressive risk-taking, particularly in China when he wore his tyres down to the canvas, contributed to his downfall in 2007. After Hungary, Hamilton has shown that he is still willing to follow the same approach now.

While his on-track reaction to Massa's first corner pass was the epitome of conservative and sensible driving, Hamilton's post-race interview told a different story. When asked about the passing move, the championship leader concluded "It won't happen again."

In his brief Formula One career, Hamilton has done almost everything but get involved in a race-ending first corner shunt. Given his aggression and the risks he takes, that is remarkable.

He is clearly determined to continue with that philosophy, in the belief that he has the car control skills to deal with any first-corner situation. In the final reckoning, that could also prove to be a perilous assumption.