Hamilton cannot afford more slips as season nears a tense climax

(AP)

Lewis Hamilton came here as a man under pressure. Crashing is becoming a worrying habit. Whether his fault or not, he has scored a total of zero points from the last two Grands Prix, in Italy and Singapore. Then, yesterday morning, the seemingly inevitable happened: Hamilton crashed again.

Britain's 2008 world champion is 20 points adrift of rival Mark Webber and down in third place in the world championship after Fernando Alonso's two successive wins. With three Grands Prix remaining after this weekend in Japan, it is crucial that he gets his McLaren working well, qualifies in a high position and get himself away from the traffic at the start to finish as far up the order as possible at a venue expected to favour the Red Bulls and Ferraris. For those very reasons, yesterday's encounter with the safety barrier was a significant blow.

Less than half an hour into the first practice session on a challenging circuit that Hamilton adores, his first flying lap stopped the clocks in 1m 33.643s, the fastest time thus far. Less than two minutes later his car was in the wall at the tricky Degner 2 curve. The left-hand front wheel had been all but torn off, and it was obvious that the silver car was not going to be fixed in a hurry.

"Lewis was 'experimenting' a little earlier than even he normally does," the rueful McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said with a benign paternal smile that hid a grimace. Perhaps he could see his team's world championship slipping away as one of the most gripping seasons in history nears its climax.

Hamilton had run a little wide in the preceding Degner 1 curve, then been powerless to stop his McLaren sliding ever wider in the second, a similarly tight right-hander. It was, without question, the last thing that Hamilton needed to happen.

Back at McLaren he did what he had done after his first-lap accident at Monza in September: he locked himself in his private room. This time there were instructions that nobody, apart from team-mate Jenson Button, who so nearly got caught out himself by the same corner later in the session, was to be allowed in.

"I was probably pushing too hard, too early," he admitted, looking crestfallen. "I was only on my second fast lap. I didn't go that wide. It wasn't even that big an off, as these things go. But the gravel there on the outside was really slippery. A couple of other drivers had moments there and got away with it. But that's life."

It was a refrain that had a familiar ring to it, after Monza and Singapore. And perhaps the most telling thing was that when he appeared briefly in the McLaren hospitality area during the lunchbreak, something of a haunted soul, he had donned his shades. It was not that bright outside, but the wall had come up. Hamilton was in his most defensive mode, privately tormented by yet more ill fortune when he could afford it least. While he wallowed, his mechanics set about rebuilding the car.

"They did the most fantastic job," he said later, the gratitude of one team player to others evident in his tone. "The people in this team are so supportive. If one person is down, for whatever reason, they'll do their best to lift that person up. That's what we do as a team."

Six and a half minutes before the afternoon session ended, when the track was past its peak, Hamilton did a series of laps good enough for 13th-fastest time. He admitted that it was far from a perfect opportunity to get a true feel for the car. But it seems that the weather gods will throw him a lifeline today, as heavy rain is forecast for the final practice session, and again in qualifying. "If that's the case," he said, the merest ghost of a smile appearing for the first time, "then everybody will have to start again." But then everyone else's cars have been refined since the early practice, not rebuilt.

"They say bad things come in threes," he added. "I really hope that my run of bad luck is now done with, after Monza, Singapore and this morning..."

With 25 points awarded for a win, and three races left tomorrow, Hamilton is still very much in the mix. But if Webber wins, he could be 45 points clear of the Briton – so he must finish this weekend. If there is good news for Hamilton, it is that the next race in South Korea now seems certain to go ahead after doubts about its surface. Yet crashes are something he can live without until he has safely crossed the finish line in Abu Dhabi next month.