Formula One: Hamilton rewarded for resilience but title challenge requires more of same

Sports Journalist

Monday 30 July 2012

Lewis Hamilton has had to contend with more than his fair share of trials and tribulations during this Formula One campaign, but nobody has ever doubted the ability of the Englishman to transcend adversity and regain momentum through the sheer force of his personality.

Lewis Hamilton celebrates his victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix. Picture: Reuters

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Neil Drysdale

At his best, as Hamilton was in dominating the Hungarian Grand Prix yesterday, he can resemble a force of nature; capable of propelling himself instinctively into a rarefied milieu where the rest of the field are left to scrap for the minor places.

Try as they might, and Kimi Raikkonen pushed as hard as he possibly could, while engaging in a dramatic battle with his Lotus team-mate Romain Grosjean, there was a sense of inevitability about Hamilton's triumph from the moment that he surged to pole position in Saturday's qualifying session and maintained that ascendancy when the main event commenced at the Hungaroring. In recent months, he has found himself involved in a public spat with defending champion Sebastian Vettel and suffered several technical glitches and mechanical snafus on his pit-stops. But, despite these travails, Hamilton has remained resilient and this latest victory means that he has risen to fourth in the drivers championship, on 117 points. That is only seven behind Mark Webber, in second, but 47 adrift of the leader, Fernando Alonso, who has consistently managed to rise above the glaring limitations of his Ferrari, as he chases his third title.None the less, on the evidence of Hamilton's bravura brilliance in Budapest, it would be unwise to dismiss his prospects of trimming that gap and surpassing the Spaniard in future contests, especially now that Jenson Button's individual aspirations have vanished for another year. "I am looking forward to the continuation of the championship. There is a long way to go and a lot of work to do, but we have shown that we can definitely compete," said Hamilton. "It is very, very close, but we are going to give it all that we can."At one stage, after Raikkonen had completed a wonderfully audacious overtaking move on Grosjean, Hamilton's advantage slipped to less than a second, but he never surrendered his sangfroid in these testing circumstances, apart from one brief complaint to the (FIA) race director, Charlie Whiting, that the back-markers wouldn't let him pass. For long spells, it was a cagey affair, with teams alternating tyre strategies and switching between softs and mediums, almost as if they couldn't fathom what the ideal tactics were in an environment where track temperatures exceeded 110ºF.Hamilton, though, remained peerless, which was more than could be said for several of his rivals. Michael Schumacher, for instance, endured another painful intimation of his waning powers when he began in the pits, had to return there in the second lap, incurred a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit area, and eventually retired, cutting a disconsolate figure. The time has surely come for Schumacher to exit. But how he manages to escape without everybody traducing him for damaging his reputation is another matter.Paul Di Resta has different problems to address, and looked crest-fallen, following another event where nearly nothing went in his favour. He started 12th, and finished there, and with Nico Hulkenberg finishing above him again, the warning signs are flashing for the Scot, who has only achieved points in one of his last five GPs and nothing from the last three. But, ultimately, the day belonged to Hamilton. Now, he needs to use this win as a springboard for more glory.

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Formula One: Hamilton rewarded for resilience but title challenge requires more of same

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