Hamilton treads carefully with tyres to reap benefit

From the depths of despair just a fortnight ago in testing when Hamilton’s McLaren seemingly had no hope of success this season, the 26-year-old showed he is likely to have a say in the title hunt which began yesterday.

Although Hamilton finished a distant 22 seconds adrift of Formula 1 world champion Vettel in yesterday’s Australian Grand Prix, that was a gap that could only have been dreamed of earlier this month.

In the early stages of the race at Melbourne’s Albert Park, the 26-year-old even began to reel in Vettel after his lightning start.

That, Hamilton believes, was due to the fact he nursed his tyres, defying those who have often accused him of throwing his car around.

“Everyone always says I have a very aggressive driving style, but (yesterday) I proved that’s not the case,” said Hamilton.

“I looked after my tyres better than the guy next to me (Vettel), and I was able to attack.”

There is no doubt Vettel’s machinery remains considerably better than Hamilton’s, despite the simplified improvements made to the exhaust and floor of the car that has propelled the Briton back into the championship picture.

But when you throw in the fact Vettel did not use the KERS power boost button all weekend due to difficulties with the device, it underlines the early superiority of the Red Bull over every other car.

“It makes it very clear they have a fantastic car, as they have had for the last year and a half,” added Hamilton.

“They’ve had the fastest car since towards the end of 2009, and they continue to have the fastest car.”

Not wanting to give Red Bull too much credit, Hamilton believes he and McLaren have performed wonders over the last two weeks to come within touching distance of their main rivals.

“It’s very rare you see such a big leap in performance in Formula 1,” said Hamilton.

“I feel really privileged to be up here (on the podium) because we thought it was going to be quite a bad weekend.

“Now, I’m back up here, back in the fight, only a few points behind the guy in front who has a much, much faster car.

“But we’ll close that gap, I have no doubts about that.”

Running over a kerb and damaging the undertray of his car forced Hamilton into backing off from any potential late run on Vettel.

The sport’s youngest world champion, however, was effectively in a class of his own, and taking last season into consideration, has now won the last three races and four of the last five.

Vettel has started this season where he left off last year in Abu Dhabi in November – in blistering, winning form.

The 23-year-old appears unstoppable at present, but he said: “I don’t really like the word dominant at this stage, to be honest, because there is a long, long way to go.

“Yes, the car was perfect, and all in all, I’m very, very happy. We’ve worked a lot of hours because it’s not an easy car to work on.

“But it was a good race. We’ve learned a lot of things, and we now need to move forwards from here.”

Team principal Christian Horner feels Hamilton is kidding himself with regard to his remarks of catching Red Bull.

“Of course he is going to say that, otherwise he may as well not turn up at the next race, but whether he believes it or not is another thing,” said Horner.

“They’ve made massive steps, they’re a great team, they always have strong development during a season.

“But we out-developed them last year, we did it the year before and we’ll be determined to try and do it again this year.”

Vitaly Petrov grabbed a superb third place for Renault for the best result of his career, with the Russian followed by the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber in his Red Bull.

Jenson Button was sixth after incurring a drive-through penalty for cutting a corner, followed by Ferrari’s Felipe Massa and Sebastien Buemi in his Toro Rosso.

Sauber’s duo, Mexican rookie Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi, had finished seventh and eighth only to be disqualified for a technical infringement, although the team have lodged their intent to appeal.

That has elevated Force India pair Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta, on his debut, into ninth and 10th, pending the result of an appeal.

Button accused slow-coach Felipe Massa of wrecking his grand prix. Button’s bid for a podium at Melbourne’s Albert Park was scuppered by Massa who proved to be a mobile road block for the opening 10 laps.

The 31-year-old McLaren driver hounded Massa in his Ferrari for fifth place, and was thwarted on many occasions as he attempted to pass the Brazilian.

Then on lap 11, as Button made a manoeuvre around Massa through the sweeping left-hand curve towards turn 11, the Briton was forced to cut turn 12 in order to avoid a potential smash.

Rather than giving the place back, Button immediately told his team over the radio he had his nose in front and had nowhere else to go.

That prompted McLaren to ask FIA race director Charlie Whiting for advice as to their position.

Whiting informed the team he would get back to them, but never did, and instead Button earned a drive-through penalty that relegated him to 12th. The 2009 world champion eventually finished sixth.

“Getting past Massa was impossible. It seemed like the only thing he wanted to do was to stop me getting by. His pace was so slow,” said Button. “He finished ninth in the end, and a lot of that was down to his first stint being so poor.”