The DRS was present, but I didn’t feel like it ruined the race too much. But what was vitally different was that the race began in the wet. So, is it a case of rain making racing more exciting once again? No, because the best action came towards the end of the race, when the circuit was at its driest.

Instead, the British Grand Prix provided further evidence that the tyre rules are ruining F1. Because all the drivers started on intermediate tyres, no-one was forced to use both dry compounds. As such, all of the drivers were on a level playing field at all times during the race. They were all using the tyres they genuinely thought was the best at the time, rather than being deliberately hobbled.

No-one had silly advantages of several seconds per lap, as we saw in China. The result was tense, close and hugely exciting racing.

If Pirelli are going to persist in developing deliberately dodgy tyres, surely it is time to scrap the rule that forces drivers to use the worst compound. It is clear that you don’t need this ridiculous rule in order to create great racing. Moreover, the rule very probably inhibits truly exciting racing.

Here is your handy guide to each of the tyre colours, and the personalities that define the compounds.

Pirelli have put a lot of hard work into this colour-coded approach to Formula 1 tyres, and I’m sure you’ll agree that fans will not be left scratching their heads in the slightest.

Here is a quick look at some of the stand-out talking points as I see them.

First of all, the “Brawn supremacy” is not quite as extreme as it seemed in Melbourne. Most observers posited that Brawn had extra pace in the bag in Australia. That may have been the case, but it seemed to almost evaporate in Malaysia.

The Achilles’ heel of the car appears to be its starts. After Rubens Barrichello’s anti-stall kicked in at the start in Australia, Jenson Button suffered from a sluggish getaway in Sepang. We have also seen a number of slow getaways from pitstops. Presumably this is a consequence of the late change of engine supplier. It could be important for Brawn because until the first set of pitstops Jenson Button had to make do with 3rd place when he seemed to have a car capable of winning.

In such a situation it helps for the boss of your team to be a renowned master tactician. After the race, Barrichello bemoaned “strange tyre choices” that thwarted his race. But Button banging in a couple of scintillating laps in clean air just before his pitstop to allow him to leapfrog to the front was pure Brawn. It was very reminiscent of the Schumacher days.

Schumacher himself wasn’t performing so well on the Ferrari pit wall. Rumour has it that he was the person who made the decision to put Kimi Räikkönen on wet tyres while the circuit was still bone dry. By the time the rain came, the furious Finn was on the radio: “my tyres are completely destroyed!!”

To rub salt in the wounds, it seems as though the Ferrari car is generally underperforming. They don’t seem to be in as bad a position as McLaren, but they are not much better. Now the teams to watch are Brawn, Toyota, Red Bull and maybe Williams. Ferrari need to improve and quick.

It would take a heart of stone not to be amused by the fact that Ferrari are currently bottom of the Constructors’ Championship, behind even Force India. Given that McLaren are supposed to be the team in the doldrums, it’s amazing that Ferrari have fouled up the start of this season so badly.

If McLaren hadn’t gone into self-destruct mode, they would have 6 (or 7) points and be lying 3rd in the Constructors’ Championship! Putting aside the unsavoury events in the stewards’ office, you have to pay tribute to Lewis Hamilton’s ability to get on with the job. By all accounts, the McLaren car is a shithouse, but the World Champion is doing a creditable job with it, especially when you consider the storm that currently surrounds him.

Hamilton had a spirited battle with Mark Webber. The Australian’s Red Bull was clearly superior in the wet (and it was such a joy to watch too!), but Hamilton was able to use kers to great effect, providing a good spectacle for the viewers for a lap or two. That is one good side of the introduction of kers, but the effect would be neutralised if all the cars were to run it.

Toyota are looking like major contenders now. I have to say I am beginning to feel like a massive pillock for writing them off back in January. Glock was another driver who benefited from an excellent strategy in Sepang, and it has to be said he did a great job ploughing through the field, maximising his advantage as one of the only drivers on intermediate tyres. I haven’t taken much notice of Glock before, but maybe it’s time to start paying attention.

Nick Heidfeld also had a good strategy, pitting just once. He spent more time on the racetrack, meaning that he finished the race in 2nd place. He didn’t actually have all that good a race though. He fell off the island while under pressure from Sebastian Vettel and allowed Hamilton through in the process too. After that he was in 11th place. In a way, though, that makes his progression all the way back up to 2nd all the more commendable.

More ominously, for a BMW supporter like me, Robert Kubica had to retire after just one lap with engine trouble. BMW may be 3rd in the Constructors’ Championship, but it is quite a distant 3rd. The first two races have not brought much cheer for BMW. Fingers crossed it is just a blip and the team will get it together.

Williams were promising, and it was notable that Nico Rosberg led the race for a considerable portion — on merit. It looks as though, if ever Williams have a chance to become front-runners again, it is this year. I sense that their drivers don’t have the talent to feel the heat at the sharp end of the field though. Looking at the lap chart, it is clear that Rosberg suffered more than most when the rain came down.

All-in-all, despite the curtailment of the race, I think the Malaysian Grand Prix was an absolute cracker. Brawn’s advantage appears to be slipping away, and the teams snapping at their heels are not the usual suspects. This is what we endure years of Ferrari dominance for.

Points

The points system for 2009 has been amended, and the result is a compromise between Bernie Ecclestone’s controversial ‘medals’ proposal and the current points system. Basically, the current 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 system will remain in tact, but the Drivers’ Championship will be awarded to the driver with the most wins.

I have long been in favour of a radical change to the points system, and I am quite receptive to a “medals-style” system. But many other fans were not so keen.

This compromise solution isn’t one that I have seen suggested before. But on the face of it, it seems like a fair enough compromise. I would still prefer a more radical change to the points system, rather than having the championship automatically going to the driver who has had the most wins. But this could have been much, much worse.

Testing

From now on, teams will be allowed three young driver training tests between the end of the championship and the end of the year. I believe that such tests were unlimited before (correct me if I’m wrong). This represents yet another barrier to the young drivers that Max Mosley purports to be helping.

Straight-line testing is also facing further restrictions. Between 1 January 2009 and the end of the championship, teams will be allowed only eight days of straight-line or constant-radius testing. As pointed out by @sidepodcast on Twitter, this could leave McLaren in trouble given the amount of straight-line testing they have already done this year.

I’m not opposed to limits on straight-line testing. It seems fair to limit it just as other testing is restricted. However, applying this retrospectively does seem to be rather underhanded, and is especially unfair on those teams that took advantage of straight line testing a lot over the winter. Is it yet another FIA anti-McLaren conspiracy? Don those tin foil hats! Say what you like about Max and Bernie, but they sure know how to stir up a fuss!

Qualifying fuel loads

The weights of all cars after qualifying will now be published. This will give the geeks (like me) a lot of interesting data to analyse on a Saturday evening. But I’m not sure how this will improve the show. Personally, the suspense surrounding a driver’s fuel load is the only good thing about having race fuel loads during qualifying. I quite like not knowing when the leaders are going to take a pitstop.

People talk about F1′s script writers. Well now we will have a “spoiler” long before the race has even begun. This is a shame.

I assume this is a response to those who lament the fact that qualifying no longer shows who the fastest driver is. But the real solution to this would be to get rid of the ridiculous race fuel load idea altogether. It has never worked, and it adds nothing to the show.

Tyres

Just a small one this. Wets are now officially “intermediates” and extreme wets are “wets”. This seems rather uncontroversial to me, because I normally refer to inters and extreme wets. Since inters became such good all-round wet weather tyres, this problem has existed, and it’s good that the FIA has tried to inject a rare bit of clarity into the regulations.

Media

Drivers will now have to make themselves more available to sign autographs. And there will be no running away in a fug of embarrassment after a poor performances. All drivers must make themselves available to the media for interview after the race or after they have retired.

Senior team personnel will also have to make themselves available to TV crews. Fota had proposed a similar idea anyway, and it’s a good idea to ensure that the fans get more out of the sport.

Changes to the 2009 Technical Regulations

You what? Yes, apparently the FIA have changed the 2009 Technical Regulations, details of which will be published later today. Haven’t they left it a bit late?…

The batshit-crazy zone

Mind your step. This is where we enter the realms of nonsense. It wouldn’t be the FIA without a nice dose of nonsense, and they certainly haven’t disappointed this time round.

From 2010 onwards there will be a budget cap of £30 million per season. But it’s a voluntary budget cap. So to give teams an incentive to stick to the magic limit, the FIA will allow these teams to have more technical freedoms. Essentially, there will be not one but two sets of Technical Regulations. Maybe from 2010 onwards the sport will become known as “Formulae Ones”, “Two Formula Ones”, “Formula One.1 and Formula One.2″.

In all seriousness, I think this is a recipe for disaster. For one thing, the FIA reckons it will be able to work out when “the cost-capped cars have neither an advantage nor a disadvantage when compared to cars running to the existing rules.”

Now I don’t know about you, but I quite like the idea that in F1 some cars are better than others. It’s called competition. It’s what sport is made of. And too often motorsports go down the route of trying to equalise performance between the cars by restricting the best cars. Then that series goes down the pan (hello, BTCC). That’s because people watch motorsport for the competition between teams and drivers. The moment you try to neutralise that, you start to alienate the core audience.

Besides, it’s all very well to do what they do in Touring Cars and add extra ballast to race-winning cars. But it’s a different thing altogether to try and work out how to manipulate cars when they are being run to separate sets of regulations. The FIA can’t even create one decent set of unambiguous technical regulations, never mind two of them, and with the aim of having the two types of cars performing equally!

For me, this just stinks. The FIA would be able to penalise cars for very little good reason, other than something vague about equalising performance. Decisions would probably be made in smoke-filled rooms, obscured from the fans’ view.

Believe it or not, F1 just got even more political.

You probably don’t need to be told that Lewis Hamilton is the 2008 Formula 1 World Drivers’ Champion. At the age of 23 years and 300 days, he eclipses Fernando Alonso to become the youngest ever World Champion. He has done so in just his second season.

No matter how well-protected Lewis Hamilton has been by the McLaren team, you don’t achieve that sort of thing by luck. Hamilton is lucky in that he has always been in a great car. It is unprecedented for such a strong team to offer a race drive to a rookie. As such, the statistics flatter him.

However, it is highly questionable that this year’s McLaren MP4-23 was the best car in the field. Ferrari did, after all, win the Constructors’ Championship. Certainly, the McLaren car put in some dominant performances, most notably at Silverstone and Hockenheim. But in both races Hamilton truly overshadowed his team mate, Heikki Kovalainen.

The Finn finished a distant 7th in the Championship, a massive 43 points behind Hamilton. No other inter-team battle has been so comprehensive in its outcome — not even in Renault. Whether the gulf was caused by Hamilton’s superiority or Kovalainen’s inferiority is a matter of interpretation. I suspect it was both.

Kovalainen will point to the fact that he was always put on the more unfavourable strategy, giving him a heavy car during qualifying. This makes his pole position in Silverstone all the more special. But Kovalainen had only one race win which, let us be clear, was a fluke.

Other drivers on the grid have been more flawless. Fernando Alonso, Robert Kubica and Sebastian Vettel spring to mind. But impressive though those drivers have been, the spotlight does not shine so intensely in the midfield. Nor were any of those drivers regularly in contention for wins like Hamilton and Massa were.

In the end, the Championship battle rightly came down to a showdown between Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton. Both drivers have made their fair share of mistakes. While Massa had a few spins throughout the season (Malaysia, Britain), Hamilton had a couple of unforgivable crashes (Bahrain, Canada).

Both drivers have also had some bad luck. Ferrari’s pitlane blunder in Singapore cost Massa a sure win and was completely out of Massa’s control. Meanwhile, Hamilton found himself at the rough edge of a suspiciously high number of stewards’ decisions.

It would have been unfortunate if Massa had won the Championship for that reason alone. There is enough anger surrounding the stewards’ decisions this year that had Massa won the Championship many people would regrettably have viewed it as a tainted win. As Clive says, just like Räikkönen’s triumph last year, Hamilton’s Championship victory is the best for international relations.

In the end, I think across the year Hamilton has shown that he deserves to become World Champion. He demonstrated that 2007 was no fluke. Mind you, in a lot of ways Hamilton’s 2008 season was a great deal worse than 2007. It was certainly less consistent. Hamilton never looked even close to equalling his staggering run of nine consecutive podiums achieved in 2008. The problem with 2007 was that Hamilton’s season completely collapsed right at the end. This year the foul-ups were interspersed all across the season — and they weren’t as severe for the most part.

This is key to why Hamilton has won this year when the title eluded him last year. He could afford the odd blow here and there as long as he didn’t let the whole thing unravel at the end. His approach towards the final two races was a world away from the immature hot-head that went to China and Brazil last year. ‘Discipline’ was the keyword emanating from the McLaren camp.

Hamilton’s Championship victory was calculated. The McLaren team’s preparations were so meticulous that it all came down to a confident weather call. Hamilton did not lash out at Vettel once the German had overtaken him, as the Hamilton of old may have done. Instead, he waited for the rain to come and spoil Glock’s final lap.

It was a calculated gamble, and it almost didn’t pay off. But McLaren and Lewis Hamilton knew exactly what they were doing. What a contrast to last year’s bungle which saw McLaren leave it too long to change Hamilton’s tyres in China and Hamilton being too eager to needlessly make up positions in Brazil.

Even though Hamilton’s performance in Fuji this year caused some raised eyebrows, that looks like it was a one off. The overall picture of Lewis Hamilton this season is one that has learned from the mistakes of last year. He has reined in the impatient streak and has learnt not to needlessly go for the win.

For me, it would have been a shame for Hamilton to have lost out on the Championship for a second time, having come so agonisingly close twice. Massa showed that he has what it takes to be a Championship contender. But Hamilton has now done it twice. And even though he couldn’t make it stick in 2007, it would have been cruel to let all of his effort and now obvious talent go unrewarded for a second year.

The first unexpected event was a short, sharp downpour coming just minutes before the scheduled start. The start–finish straight was now soaking wet, leaving the drivers stranded on the wrong tyres. The start was delayed by ten minutes. The rain stopped as quickly as it started, and the sun shone.

It looked as though the track might have been drying enough. But the river of water was running down the Senna S, making the first complex of corners tricky throughout the race. Intermediates were the right tyre to go on at first, to the disadvantage of Robert Kubica who started on dry tyres, had to pit after the formation lap and was never in contention again.

For the leaders, the start didn’t shuffle things up too much. Hamilton appeared to get a poor start, but luckily Kovalainen was his only main challenger. The McLaren team mate gave Hamilton an easy time through turn 1 and Hamilton stayed in position 4.

As the track dried out on lap 10, Massa pitted for dry tyres. The following lap all the other front-runners followed suit. But by pitting earlier, Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso brought themselves into contention. By this stage, Hamilton had found himself in 6th position, behind the Force India of Fisichella.

The Italian was soon dispensed with, not just by Hamilton but by several other cars. But with Hamilton needing to finish in 5th position, things were pretty tense. It was clear that Massa had the race under control and practically had the win in the bag. The Championship situation could hardly have been closer.

Vettel’s pitstop strategy was out of sequence with the other leaders, which threw another uncertainty into the mix. Overall, though, Vettel’s strategy meant that Hamilton’s “true” position was effectively a stable fourth, which would have secured Hamilton the Championship no bother. To tell the truth, the race was becoming rather bland.

Then the rain came back. It was another spell of rain that was difficult to read. Seemingly it was pretty heavy at one point in the pitlane, but only for a short period of time. The rest of the circuit didn’t seem to be affected as badly. The front-runners came in for dry tyres, but Timo Glock was the most notable person electing to stay on the dry tyres. This propelled the Toyota driver ahead of Hamilton, placing the Brit in 5th place, back on a knife-edge.

At first, it seemed as though Glock’s decision had paid off. The drivers running intermediates were not having as much of an advantage over the grooved tyres as may have been expected and Glock looked safe in 4th.

Meanwhile, Hamilton had his mirrors full of Vettel. McLaren are usually seen to have an advantage in damp conditions, but it has to be said that Toro Rosso have even more of an advantage. Vettel made life very difficult for Hamilton in the final few laps, and when the fancied German passed Hamilton it looked like it was game over for the Brit. Hamilton was now in 6th place, with Massa still easily on for the win.

As Massa came across the finish line, he was World Champion. If memory serves me correctly, at the start of the previous lap Glock still had at least a ten second advantage over Vettel, who in turn was a second or two ahead of Hamilton. Glock’s sector 1 time was slow, but not slow enough. But obviously the dry tyres caved in through the twisty sector two. If you’re struggling in the wet, that is where you will suffer the most — and boy did Glock suffer.

At the end of sector 2, on the last slow corner of the circuit, Vettel passed Glock, and Hamilton followed soon afterwards. In the most incredible of fashions, Hamilton had won the Championship in the final sector — indeed, in the final corner.

It didn’t take long for the conspiracy theorists to suggest that Glock backed off to let Hamilton past. But I see no explanation for why Glock would do this. It seems to me that the dry tyres simply gave up the ghost. His team mate Jarno Trulli, also on dry tyres, posted a near-identical lap time on the final lap, suggesting that intermediates were the right tyres to use on the final lap.

But so unexpected was Glock’s sudden drop in performance that personnel in the Ferrari garage were still celebrating several seconds after Hamilton had crossed the finish line in 5th position. The moment when a calmer head came across to the group and said “no, no” was broadcast on the FOM world feed. It was a painful moment as you saw the smirks drop off their faces.

Seemingly, Felipe Massa had already been told he was World Champion. You absolutely have to feel sorry for Massa today. He did everything he needed to do in Interlagos, and his World Championship was snatched away at the last possible moment.

But hats off to Felipe Massa who proved that he is a good loser. He approached the situation with absolute dignity. The podium ceremony was surreal, with the national anthems of Brazil and Italy blasting out in recognition of a Felipe Massa–Ferrari win. But Massa hadn’t won. He’d lost. His face said it all. But he approached the edge of the podium to greet his home crowd in a most dignified manner. He was philosophical and respectful during the press conference.

It was a partisan crowd in Interlagos, but you wouldn’t expect anything else. Some complained about the fans jeering, but as long as it is not malicious I see no harm. It is only to be expected that Brazilians would want to see a Brazilian be crowned World Champion in Brazil. I got the impression that it was a more playful, pantomime-style atmosphere and I am sure it would be similar if it were a bunch of British fans in the grandstand at a championship decider in Britain.

All-in-all, it was quite an incredible race — perhaps the most hair-raising end to a Championship I have ever seen. The circumstances were so bizarre that it seemed as though the post-race atmosphere was subdued. Spiritual atmosphere was matched by meteorological atmosphere as the heavens had opened in the most spectacular way and the podium ceremony was held more or less in complete darkness under heavy clouds. But I doubt Hamilton will let the atmosphere get in the way of his first World Drivers Championship.

Apart from Sebastian Vettel, the star of the show was probably Lewis Hamilton. He was severely compromised by  yet another odd McLaren tyre strategy call. Hamilton took a risk that he certainly did not need to take. In Q2, you only need to finish in the top ten to progress. Goodness only knows why in this situation Hamilton and his engineer decided to take a risk to put on intermediates when it was far from clear that the circuit  was dry enough.

Hamilton was trundling around on inters while everyone else was setting the fastest times of the session on extreme wet tyres. By the time Hamilton managed to get onto the desirable extreme wets (and after losing a lot of time by being randomly called to get weighed), the track had become wetter and he was no longer in a position to set a fast time. Game over. 15th on the grid.

Not that that was an excuse, mind you. Even while he was on wets, there were people setting faster times than him. But clearly for some reason — brake temperatures, whatever — his car just wasn’t coping well enough with the conditions. At least Kimi Räikkönen was just one position ahead of him.

It promised to be a mouthwatering midfield battle, with two of F1′s biggest stars making their way through the field in wet conditions. In the event, Raikkonen yet again disappointed. He did climb a few places, but Hamilton made a few more and made those passes with more style and bravery. Kimi seemed his (nowadays) usual sleepy self. Up until the last few laps, that is. Ho hum.

But while many of Hamilton’s overtaking manoeuvres were damned impressive, yet again Hamilton’s driving came under the spotlight. I have been critical in the past of Hamilton’s overly-aggressive driving style and the Italian Grand Prix brought up three major examples of this nasty side of Hamilton’s character.

First of all, there was an incident during his move on Fernando Alonso which the Spaniard complained about after the race. I have to admit that I saw little wrong with Hamilton’s move on Alonso. What concerned me more was the other two major incidents.

Towards the end of the race Hamilton made a breathtaking blocking move while Mark Webber was lining up to pass him in the run-up to the first chicane. At first I thought that Webber was being too optimistic. But when I saw the replay from Webber’s on-board T-cam, I found myself becoming much more concerned about the way Hamilton appeared to barge Webber straight onto the grass. Hamilton says he was just going for the better line into the corner, but that doesn’t matter. Barging someone off the track — especially when conditions are as damp as they were — is a big no-no in my book.

But it was his swipe on Timo Glock earlier on in the race that really took the biscuit for me. Hamilton’s initial move (again, into the first chicane) on Glock was brilliant, but the Toyota driver got better traction coming out of the chicane. Glock was catching right back up to Hamilton and was just coming side-by-side with the Brit along Curva Grande when Hamilton swiped straight across and forced Glock onto the grass.

At that point of the race, conditions were still quite horrrific and Hamilton’s move seemed at best reckless and at worst downright dangerous. It was suggested at the time by ITV commentator Martin Brundle that Hamilton may have been unable to see Glock in his mirrors due to all the spray, and I can only hope that that was the case because it is not nice to see a driver playing dirty like that. I criticised Michael Schumacher for this sort of thing, and I will criticise Lewis Hamilton for it.

You can see a video of the controversial incidents over at Axis of Oversteer, with whom I agree on this matter. All-in-all I think Hamilton’s driving may even have been worthy of a punishment. Certainly, his incident with Glock could well have earned him a drive-through penalty if different stewards were in place. We can’t forget that all of this was happening in the immediate aftermath of the controversy surrounding Hamilton’s penalty at the Belgian Grand Prix.

No doubt the stewards were slightly wary of punishing Hamilton for fear of another backlash or yet more accusations of the FIA’s pro-Ferrari bias. For me, though, the fact that he escaped punishment for dangerous driving at Monza goes a long way towards making up for the injustice of his penalty in Belgium.

A lot of people have been talking recently about how Hamilton appears to have matured in recent races. He now knows when to settle for second rather than needlessly go for the win. But he has only matured to an extent. I have long argued that Hamilton’s greatest flaw is his impatience — his inability to pace himself and know when to hold back. His swipe on Glock was an instance where he could have done with relaxing a bit more and letting the situation unfold in its own time rather than forcing the issue.

Craig at Craigblog has speculated that Lewis Hamilton’s attitude could end up costing him the world championship. I certainly think this is an aspect of his racing that he needs to have a serious think about. If it doesn’t stop him from winning the championship, it will stop many fans from being able to support him. Reminds me of a certain M. Schumacher.

You have to hand it to BMW. Just like France, the British GP weekend didn’t look like it was shaping up too well for them.

Robert Kubica had to completely abandon Q3 (thereby qualifying 10th by default) due to a car issue. The dampers had to be changed overnight meaning that the Pole was effectively driving a car he had never driven before during the race. In the end he put in a plucky performance, running in third until he aquaplaned off 21 laps from the end. You could call it Kubica’s first mistake of the season, and I was immensely disappointed to see him make an error.

Nick Heidfeld, meanwhile, drove a stormer. Qualifying was good by Heidfeld’s standards. He started 5th on the grid and it looks as though Quick Nick has finally solved his tyre heat issues. And in the race he did a more than solid job. Not only did he keep it on the racetrack, but he also had a few overtaking moves up his sleeve. An audacious, opportunistic double overtake was pulled off while Kovalainen and Räikkönen were more concerned with each other. This effectively put him in second place.

Renault had another poor race. If you look at the lap chart, Fernando Alonso was absolutely all over the place. The team gambled by opting to keep Alonso on worn inters. It was the same gamble as Ferrari made, and the result was pretty similar. All things considered, I suppose Alonso should be pleased with his 6th place finish.

But Nelsinho Piquet overtook Alonso for the second race in a row and was looking really good until he spun off while in 4th place. Maybe the Brazilian really is on the up.

Meanwhile, Williams continue to disappoint. The real headscratcher for me is Nico Rosberg. I think it is getting to the stage now where Williams should be docking his wages for every front wing he trashes. That guy can’t stop getting into little incidents. People complain about DC crashing all the time — but look at Rosberg. Not impressive.

Kazuki Nakajima continues to do a solid job picking up the points. Kudos to him. At one point he was in last place, so to plough his way back up to 8th is good going.

The Williams pair are now equal on points. When one of them in considered to be an awesome hot-shot and the other is seen to be there just because he allows Williams to have cheap Toyota engines, you have to wonder just what is going on with Rosberg. You can’t even say he’s had an undue amount of bad luck. He is simply not performing to the standard that we are led to believe he has in him.

Talking of the Championship, it just gets better and better! The top three drivers are all equal on 48 points, and fourth-placed Kubica is just two points down on that. Kubica could well have been leading the championship again if it wasn’t for his spin.

After I criticised McLaren for failing to fully capitalise on their supposed advantage at Monaco and Canada, I have to applaud them for pulling this out of the bag. This is a truly unpredictable season.

It’s like last year but even better. You turn up to each track not quite knowing who is going to have the upper-hand between Ferrari and McLaren. But this time the Drivers Championship is even closer. Plus there is the added element of BMW who are still plugging away near the top.

The midfield race is also pretty hot. Beforehand it looked as though the teams from 4th to 7th were really close. But now Toyota and Red Bull have pulled out a bit of a lead and just a point separate them in the battle for 4th. Meanwhile, Honda have pulled themselves into contention in the race for 6th place. The battle covers Williams, Renault and Honda and the gap between the three teams is just two points.

This is the half-way stage of the season. Not too long ago we would have seen Ferrari having practically wrapped up both titles by now.

Not only is the championship close, but the races are amazing as well. For my money, the British GP was the fifth amazing grand prix in a row. We are well overdue a boring race. Every time I think the next one will be boring, but it isn’t! In short, 2008 is awesome. If the new aero rules for 2009 bring us boring races and a Championship dominated by one team, I will run into a brick wall.

Hamilton had just had the worst two races of his career. His performances in Canada and France were error-strewn and exhibited the worst of his most obvious trait, his impatience. The media was beginning to round on him, and although you could argue that the criticism was fair, there is no doubt that Hamilton was totally rattled about the whole thing.

It was worrying when it seemed as though he was beginning to pick fights with the media. If you start a fight with the media, especially in Britain, you simply don’t win. Combine this with rumours that the Hamilton clan does not get on with McLaren boss Ron Dennis or the team’s big-name PR man Matt Bishop and it was beginning to look as though Hamilton’s career was on the verge of coming down in flames.

As I have said before, Hamilton is great enough when the pressure is not on. But when it really matters he looks like a nervous wreck. So I didn’t see how — in this situation, following a terrible June, at his home grand prix — he was going to perform well. His dire qualifying performance only added to that sense.

Yet come race day it all came good for him. Somehow he put behind him all the troubles that had been building up. From 4th on the grid, he capitalised on poor starts from the cars ahead of him and was challenging his team mate for the lead by turn 1, the famous Copse corner. Indeed, Hamilton was so aggressive that he tapped Kovalainen, and both cars almost lost control.

That tap could easily have been just the latest Hamilton-instigated disaster. Yet both drivers got away with just a twitch of the rear each and carried on racing at the front as if nothing had happened. It was obvious that Hamilton was absolutely desperate to overtake his team mate. He wasn’t just hungry. He was starving. Understandable after a month-long fast.

Finally, on lap six, Hamilton took his team mate. It was plain that Kovalainen was holding Hamilton up, and as soon as the Brit was released he drove off into the distance. That was understandable given the rumours that Kovalainen was on a heavier fuel load. But the rumour wasn’t true — Kovalainen was the first of the McLarens to pit.

Hamilton was heavier and was comprehensively showing Kovalainen how to do it. After the Finn’s mesmerising qualifying performance it was a real disappointment. It’s difficult to pin down just how good Kovalainen is. Ron Dennis still claims he is in the process of “re-building” the former Renault driver. It is said that Kovalainen is still not where he should be in terms of confidence and fitness.

His qualifying performance looked like we were finally back to the Kovalainen we were promised before he came into F1. But come race day he was put firmly in the shadow by Lewis Hamilton and it’s clear that Kovalainen still needs some work if he wants to be the star driver he might be. He eventually finished over a lap down in 5th. Not great.

Meanwhile, Hamilton sped off into the distance. He made only one small mistake while others seemingly couldn’t stop spinning. Whenever I looked at live timing my jaw hit the floor at how much his lead had grown. By the end of the race the gap to second-placed Nick Heidfeld was 68.5 seconds. Hamilton’s victory could hardly have been more comprehensive. What a way to silence the doubters. Having to bear Hamilton’s post-race cockiness is a small price to pay to see such an awesome drive.

It could all have been so very different if Ferrari had got it right. They had one of their nightmare weekends that they have from time to time these days. This was not quite of Melbourne 2008 proportions, but it was close.

You expect Silverstone, with its long straights and sweeping, fast corners, to suit the Ferrari. So their lack of pace in practice was a bit of a mystery. It’s not that they were particularly slow in practice, and Massa could be excused for having a huge shunt in Friday Practice 1 that wasn’t his fault (as he spun on a huge patch of Alonso’s oil). But McLaren were right up there at the top of the timing sheets.

Come qualifying it was beginning to look like Ferrari were properly out of sorts. They had a hairy moment in Q2 when they struggled to set any blistering times, and they must have breathed a sigh of relief when they got through to Q3.

Then came the race. Felipe Massa was back to his old self. He is not known for being great in the wet, and the Brazilian spun no fewer than five times. The first came on lap one. He was second-last after the spin. The only person behind him was Mark Webber, who also spun on lap one. But by the next lap Webber had overtaken him and Massa was dead last.

Webber ploughed his way through the field in stunning fashion, overtaking cars at the rate of about one per lap. At one point he reached 10th position. The Australian was helped by the fact that he was on a lighter fuel load, but it was nevertheless a stunning display. His pitstop strategy was not enough to provide him with a good result in the end though. But he certainly showed Massa how it’s done.

Massa lacked Webber’s confidence, and sometimes looked as though he wasn’t even trying. He took several laps to pass the sluggish Nico Rosberg and didn’t find the Force India of Fisichella much easier to take. After that, his ramshackle performance ensured that he remained firmly last of the runners and in the end he was the only person to finish two laps behind the leader. If Felipe Massa wins the World Championship, I will shit myself with rage.

At least Kimi Räikkönen looked a bit better in the driving department. In the early phase of the race Kimi looked like he was in with a shout of the win, being the only person who was really competing with Lewis Hamilton. But then Ferrari made a strategic blunder.

The two leaders took their pitstops simultaneously. Hamilton took a new set of intermediate tyres. Räikkönen kept his old inters on. It would have worked perfectly for Ferrari if conditions had remained as they were. But then the rain came. McLaren’s forecast must have been better. Hamilton’s fresh inters still had a tread that was capable of clearing the water from his path. Räikkönen’s tired old tyres weren’t up to the job on a circuit that was getting wetter.

Almost immediately Hamilton was a second faster than Räikkönen in just one sector. By the next lap he was almost five seconds ahead. Before long Räikkönen was firmly in the distance and Hamilton’s race was certainly his to lose. Belatedly, Räikkönen came in to change his tyres. But his race was already ruined. A couple of spins later, Räikkönen finished fourth. He was a lap down. How humiliating. From challenging for the lead to being lapped all due to a dodgy tyre decision.

It was another strategic blunder from Ferrari who seemingly were not aware of the rain that was just minutes away from arriving. How they must miss Ross Brawn, who was working a few doors down the pitlane at Honda masterminding Rubens Barrichello’s race.

Barrichello took extreme wets early on and was setting blistering lap times. It was a gamble but it paid off. Moreover, it was a masterful drive from the most experienced driver of all time. He was the last of the runners on the lead lap, 82.2 seconds behind Hamilton. But in these conditions that was enough for a well-deserved podium finish. How sweet it must be for Honda and Barrichello. The team is still not at the sharp end of the grid, but under the guidance of Ross Brawn they have certainly turned the corner.

My British Grand Prix race review will be continued tomorrow