Last year of course, Lewis was in a World Champion's team - this year he isn't and his team mate is equally inexperienced. There's no one capable of giving the team direction and it shows. Of course Stewart did not have to deal with the immense media pressure that Hamilton does and he felt that they had treated his Canadian mishap unfairly, but he is everywhere you look and the "build 'em up one day, knock 'em down the next" is a well known media tactic for celebrities. Attending Nelson Mandela's birthday party complete with your Pussycat Doll girlfriend and allegedly wearing make-up is hardly indicative of a desire to shun publicity, live the quiet life and think about understeer in turn two. A number of apposite proverbs come to mind involving sowing and reaping, cake and eating, let alone the Devil and a long spoon....

Last year I wrote about attending the F1 tyre testing at SIlverstone. You just turned up with your thermos and a packet of sandwiches, paid your tenner and enjoyed the cars with your fellow enthusiasts. This year, it was 12 quid and you had to book online in advance and by the time I saw it was sold out. Another simple pleasure gone. There were 45,000 there on Thursday, apparently mostly to see Hamilton! Having no interest in celebrity "culture", this is something I cannot understand, I just wanted to see the bleedin' cars! Mind you, I can console myself with the fact that not going to the tyre testing means that the F1 industry will get precisely none of my money this year. When TV coverage goes back to the BBC I'll be happy for a portion of my Licence Fee to be spent on it, just to get rid of the adverts, many of which feature Hamilton....

Hamilton and McLaren's nightmares continued in France. He qualified third, but started 13th due to the penalty imposed in Canada. In the race, he swiftly disposed of Vettel, but had to miss the next corner. He was judged to have gained a place by this and received a drive through penalty. Neither he nor Big Ron were amused. However it is clear that although he was past Vettel, there was no way he would have made the corner, not for the least of which reasons was that there was another car there. A drive-through penalty was imposed by the Stewards, this being the least severe penalty open to them. Before he served it he managed to hit his team mate and afterwards continued to drive in the same ragged style to finish 10th. Nil points for the second race in succession.

Team mate Kovalainen fared little better. He was penalised five grid places because the Stewards felt he had impeded Webber in qualifying. In the same column, Sir Jackie also has something to say about the consistency with which penalties are applied to teams. Of course, we Tifosi cannot agree with him. It's going to be interesting to see if Hamilton can get it back together. The British GP will be critical for Hamilton. All of the advice is that he should focus on his driving but we Tifosi should hope he ignores it.

Last year the Silverstone test saw Ferrari introduce an aero upgrade that enabled them to re-gain their form in France after a difficult North American campaign. This year the test was after Magny Cours (which looks like being the venue for the French GP for the for seeable future) but fortunately this year Ferrari did not need it, the Scuderia were comfortably on top all weekend. In Q2, when the cars are light on fuel and quickest, Massa was on top with Raikkonen second and Hamilton third just over a tenth behind. He could be discounted because of his penalty, so it was Trulli who was another tenth behind, so a good three tenths from the lead Ferrari to the nearest challenger.

The Ferraris set almost identical times in Q3, but with Raikkonen securing Scuderia Ferrari's 200th Pole in GP racing with a 1:16.449 ahead of Massa's 1:16.490 with Hamilton third on 1:16.693. Alonso was fourth on 1:16.840, but he was in a Renault in France, so it was likely to be a marketing led strategy. Sure enough he stopped some five laps before anyone else, but nowadays, to save face, teams say they switched from a three to a two stop strategy!

Sure enough in the race the Ferraris gradually drew away and the only drama - and it was a real one - was when Raikkonen slowed dramatically, the exhaust having broken, so Massa nipped passed. The hot gasses burned the bodywork away but it didn't catch fire, then the pipe could be seen flailing around on the end of the lambda sensor lead until it fell off. These events were remarkably fortunate in how they turned out but it's amazing that Raikkonen was able to re-set the gizmology and this hugely sophisticated and complex machine was able to keep going at all, let alone at a pace quick enough to secure second place.

Sir Jackie and others may question why Raikkonen was not called into the pits to have the loose bits removed, but maybe the officials thought that the wind would extinguish the fire and anyway when the pipe did fall off it didn't hit another car so all was well. Massa cruised to a comfortable win to take the lead in the Drivers' title chase.

Trulli drove a good race for Toyota to finish on the podium. Kovy recovered well from his penalty fighting his way up to fourth. I reckon he is an underrated driver and just needs a bit more luck, he certainly seems to have a gentler touch than his team mate. BMW Sauber came back to earth with a bump after their 1-2 in France, Heidfeld failing to get through to Q3. However, Kubica finished fifth and added to his points total. Webber was sixth for Red Bull ahead of the Renaults of Piquet and Alonso. The young Brazilian scoring the first points of his career and finishing after passing his illustrious team mate when the latter made a mistake, all of this will have gone a long way to salvaging his faltering career.

On now to Silverstone. With only ten points separating the top four drivers it's got to be time for team orders soon, especially at Ferrari as they are the only team with two drivers in the hunt.


* B.R.M. The Saga of British Racing Motors, Volume 3 by Doug Nye with Tony Rudd.

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