Hamilton reigns in rain to seal 'best' win and regain title lead

(AP)

He came, he saw, and boy did he need to conquer. Even the most ardent of Lewis Hamilton's legion of fans knew he had a mountain to climb. In just under an hour and 40 minutes' work, he eradicated memories of his pit lane gaffe in Montreal, and his misfortune in Magny-Cours. In one mighty, sodden leap, he jumped right back into the lead of the world championship.

On an afternoon when his rivals Felipe Massa and Robert Kubica failed to score, and Kimi Raikkonen struggled to a distant fourth, Hamilton made everyone else look like also-rans as he won by just over a minute.

It was, even by his elevated definition, the best race of his career. And it began with a bang.

The track was damp when his team-mate Heikki Kovalainen pushed his McLaren into the lead from pole position, and it was Hamilton, from back on the second row, on the supposedly inferior inside line, who was right there alongside him, ahead of front-row man Mark Webber and Raikkonen. Too close, it transpired. "I had some close racing with Heikki after making a great start," he admitted, "but, to be honest, I lifted too early into Copse and was just sliding across and there was nothing I could do to avoid him and we tapped. The last thing I wanted to do was take my team-mate out."

The "tap" almost did that, but Kovalainen caught a big slide beautifully, and stayed in the lead until Hamilton slid elegantly ahead as they went into Becketts Corner on the fifth lap. It was a decisive move, that set the tone for everything that followed.

Initially, Raikkonen looked a potential threat in the Ferrari, after Kovalainen had lost another place after spinning. The world champion cut what had been as much as a six-second lead to only two when the pair made their first pit stops on lap 21. Ferrari's stop was fractionally faster but, unaccountably, they left Raikkonen on the same set of intermediate tyres.

McLaren gave Hamilton a fresh set, and that proved as decisive as his move on Kovalainen. Where Hamilton forged ahead, Raikkonen began a slump. By half-distance Hamilton was 23.7 seconds ahead of German driver Nick Heidfeld and Kovalainen. Raikkonen was fourth, but another stop for fresh tyres dropped him back to 11th, with a mountain of his own to climb.

So phenomenal was Hamilton's spurt that it seemed almost to border on recklessness likely to create a McLaren splatter pattern all over the Northamptonshire countryside. "I had to slow down because they were telling me I was pulling away so quickly," he added. "But I said, 'Hold on a second, what's going on? I'm not even pushing, but driving to a comfortable pace'. I didn't want to slow down, because the moment you do that you lose concentration. I had to be very sensible. I had to imagine I was 60 seconds ahead, then fell off, and that would have been so embarrassing. There's no way you could come back from that, you would have to retire. It was about managing it all."

Now it was clearly Hamilton's race to lose, and the weather gods did little to smile upon him. In the middle of the race it began to rain hard, rendering Silverstone a skating rink. And in the cockpit he had more than just keeping his car on the road to worry about. "It was so extreme out there, probably as extreme in some cases as Fuji last year although there wasn't as much rain," he said. "It could be dry in the first sector, but there was rain on my visor in the second. I had visor problems, and had to put it up between turns one and two, and again before Stowe, to keep it clear, and I had to do that nearly every lap just to be able to see. I couldn't see in my mirrors or out of my visor."

The only time anyone passed him was when the former Ferrari strategist Ross Brawn put Rubens Barrichello's Honda on extreme wet weather tyres in its middle stint, and the Brazilian was running faster than anyone else as he unlapped himself.

"All I could hear was the tone of two engines," Hamilton said. "I thought, 'Oh no, just let him past, stay on the inside and brake early. He came flying down the outside... It was such a tough mental challenge."

Elsewhere, others failed to handle that challenge so adroitly. Massa, who came into the weekend as the hero of Magny-Cours and the championship leader, had a race to forget. The increasingly dizzy Brazilian spun his Ferrari at least five times, and trailed home 13th. Kubica, the hero of Montreal, was in the running for a podium finish before making a rare error which pitched his BMW Sauber off the road and out of the race. Even Raikkonen rotated twice, before fighting back in front of the duelling Fernando Alonso and Kovalainen. As a demonstration of resolve and dominance, Hamilton's peerless performance was reminiscent of Ayrton Senna's greatest day, in the similarly tricky Grand Prix of Europe at Donington Park in 1993.

Hamilton had used similar words after winning in Monaco, but now, on his home ground after weeks of unrelenting pressure, he let the emotion flow as he described the success as "by far the best victory I ever had, one of the toughest races I have ever done. As I was driving I said, 'I'll believe if I win this that it is definitely the best race I have ever won'. Coming into the last lap I could see the crowd beginning to stand, and I was praying, 'Just keep it on the track, just finish'. You can't imagine the emotions inside me. I wanted to push, but also just to get the car back.

"I dedicate this one to my family. I've had some troubles in the last few weeks but as always my family was there to support me. Before the race my brother Nick said, 'Don't worry, it'll be all right. You're the master in the wet.'"

Yesterday evening, that was a mantra taken up by all those who witnessed one of the most crushing demonstrations in recent Formula One history.

Silverstone race details

1 Lewis Hamilton (GB) McLaren-Mercedes 1hr 39min 9.440sec

2 Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW-Sauber, 1:40:18.017

3 Rubens Barrichello (Br) Honda, 1:40:31.713

4 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari +1 lap

5 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) McLaren-Mercedes +1 lap

6 Fernando Alonso (Sp) Renault +1 lap

7 Jarno Trulli (It) Toyota +1 lap

8 Kazuki Nakajima (Japan) Williams-Toyota +1 lap

9 N Rosberg (Ger) Williams-Toyota +1 lap

10 M Webber (Aus) Red Bull-Renault +1 lap

11 S Bourdais (Fr) Scuderia Toro Rosso-Ferrari +1 lap

12 T Glock (Ger) Toyota +1 lap

13 F Massa (Br) Ferrari +2 laps

Failed to finish

14 R Kubica (Pol) BMW-Sauber 39 laps completed

15 J Button (GB) Honda 38 laps

16 N Piquet Jnr (Br) Renault 35 laps

17 G Fisichella (It) Force India-Ferrari 26 laps

18 A Sutil (Ger) Force India-Ferrari 10 laps

19 S Vettel (Ger) Scuderia Toro Rosso-Ferrari 0 laps

20 D Coulthard (GB) Red Bull-Renault 0 laps.

Constructors standings

1 Ferrari 96pts

2 BMW-Sauber 82

3 McLaren-Mercedes 72

4 Toyota 25

5 Red Bull-Renault 24

6 Williams-Toyota 16

7 Renault 15

8 Honda 14

9 Toro Rosso-Ferrari 7

10 Force India-Ferrari 0

11 Super Aguri-Honda 0