FORMULA 1 GERMAN GRAND PRIXEVEN A great sportsman needs the unwitting collaboration of his rivals in order to define his pre-eminence, but for Lewis Hamilton yesterday it came from, bizarrely, his own McLaren team, as well as Toyota's Timo Glock.
Hamilton raced away from his pole position at the start of yesterday's race with such brio that the other 20 drivers in the race might have been under the distinct impression they had engaged reverse gear. Felipe Massa, who had been second on the grid, watched the Briton's car get smaller and smaller in front of him as it pulled away at sometimes more than a second a lap. Soon the Brazilian was looking at a dot, and then fresh air.
This, then, would be one of Hamilton's most convincing but less thrilling victories, it seemed.
On his first Formula One appearance at this track it would be little more than a procession beside the Rhine.
Then, on lap 36, Glock ran wide and his car spun out of control and disintegrated against a barrier.
The safety car, which Hamilton has reason to suppose is his most dedicated adversary this season after his red-light collision in Canada in June, was brought on for four laps.
Suddenly Hamilton's lead of almost 12 seconds was cut to nothing. It was now that McLaren, whose almost forensic attention to detail makes them the most professional of all the teams in the enlarged Scalextric set that is the Formula One circus, made a fundamental error. They should have brought him in then for his second stop, for he would have had every chance of emerging from the pits still in the lead. They did not.
Instead they kept him out in the hope he could build up another comfortable cushion of more than 20 seconds to allow for the pit stop.
But Hamilton could not stay out long enough. When the safety car was withdrawn after four laps he did pull away once more but he had been the first of the leading cars to pit, after only 17 laps, and there was an increasingly urgent need for him to do so again.
He simply did not have the laps to build up another substantial advantage.
By the time he did come in and then rejoin the race he was in fifth place, behind Nick Heidfeld, Nelson Piquet, Massa and his own team-mate, Heikki Kovalainen, who himself needed a good performance here, if only to dispel the usual mid-season rumours of musical driving seats for next year.
But, immediately after the McLaren team principal, Ron Dennis, had gone on the internal radio, the Finn moved over for his faster partner in the most gentlemanly "After you, Claude" fashion.
Then Heidfeld pitted, so Hamilton was third. But on his new and softer tyres he was bearing down fast on the front two.
It was now the crowd were presented with further evidence that Hamilton is not only supremely fast but also a born racer, a thrilling taker of opportunities that goes right back to his karting childhood. On the 57th lap, on the hairpin that is the sixth turn, he slipped alongside Massa and nudged him over. Massa tried to retake Hamilton on the eighth bend but the McLaren driver slammed the door in his face and the Ferrari was squeezed into the dirt beside the track.
Now Hamilton closed on Piquet, his old GP2 rival, with such menacing purpose it felt almost like watching one of David Attenborough's wildlife films. He caught him on the 60th, seven laps from the end, and drove alongside him for some time as if to savour the kill. Then, on the same corner where he had seen off Massa, Hamilton's late braking gave him the inside line on Piquet, forcing the Brazilian's Renault on to the kerb before the Englishman stormed away once more to take the flag six seconds ahead of the rest.
McLaren-Mercedes have had the best car since they arrived here for testing almost two weeks ago. The team's aim, to become a tenth of a second faster with each race, is nothing less than the dogged pursuit of perfection. But this cannot diminish the brilliance of Hamilton. Two weeks previously he had showed altogether different skills to prove himself a rain master at Silverstone. Now he beat not only his opponents but also the hesitancy of his team advisers.
Heidfeld finished fourth and Kovalainen fifth.
And the world champion, Kimi Raikkonen, who had a strangely muted weekend, finished sixth.
Hockenheim these days is a bland and sanitised track compared with what it was before it was modified in 2002. This and the benign conditions helped 17 of the drivers to finish. Jenson Button was the last of them; David Coulthard, with whom he sparred briefly, came 13th.
Hamilton, though, dominated this race just as he had dominated practice on Friday and qualifying on Saturday. This has been a season of extremes for him: despair in Bahrain, Canada and France, the purest joy in Australia, Monaco, Silverstone and Germany. Now, though, he is achieving the consistency he needs to win the championship that seems his destiny.
Guardian Service
