Lewis
Hamilton was pretty down after the Austrian Grand Prix, which was
understandable seeing as he had just seen his championship deficit to
Sebastian Vettel stretch to 20 points.
The Mercedes driver was
fairly monosyllabic in his television interviews. A pep talk from team
boss Toto Wolff followed, the Austrian telling him he should see his
fourth place as "12 points won rather than lost". But, while he was more open and expansive with the written media shortly afterwards, the general negative tone continued.
And then, at the end, a moment of realisation, presumably of the headlines that might follow, and a plea for understanding.
"Adversity is when there is an opportunity to grow and do something really special," Hamilton said. "I am really happy with the way I have been driving considering [the results].
"It is important for people who are watching and also people who are reporting that you have patience with us as drivers. You can't be happy every day you have a result.
"Whether it is second, fifth, 10th, whatever it is, you are going to be annoyed at one point, because you put so much into it.
"You train. You sacrifice everything to make sure you get the best result possible. So when you don't - if you don't personally deliver and other things stack up against you - it is hard to come out smiling. Because that means you don't care enough. And the fact is I care more than anything.
"So there are days when it feels more painful than others. There are days when it is easier to handle and think: 'I will move forwards.' So when you make comments, or are writing stories, bear that in mind. It is not a sign of being ungrateful or anything.
"This is an intense battle which I am loving, and we are enjoying as a team, but I want to win this championship.
"Right now I am 20 points behind. I don't have a crystal ball but it doesn't look great at the moment. But there is still a long way to go. Within one race it could switch. But the bigger the gap gets the more pressure builds."
An open book
It was there throughout the weekend in Austria.
There was the Thursday news conference in which he undercut Vettel's attempt to draw a line under his road-rage moment in Baku at the previous race by revealing that the German had not apologised when they spoke the day after the race, only by text a day after that. And said he still wasn't completely sure the German had made it clear he did not think Hamilton had 'brake-tested' him (although Vettel did).
There were the monosyllabic interviews after he qualified third rather than fastest, which meant he would start eighth rather than sixth, and in which he tried to bat off his disappointment before, finally, admitting: "I didn't deliver. I have been quick all weekend and in Q3 I didn't do the time I could have done and when you're disappointed in yourself it is a large pill to swallow. But we move on and I will."
And then after the race. Hamilton had done about as much as could be expected, expertly balanced caution and aggression, picked his way through the field, adapted to a car whose balance he was not happy with, which was causing problems with the tyres.
But still his focus was that he had not quite managed to separate Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo from third place on the penultimate lap.
"After my initial feelings," he said, "I just watched the replay with Daniel, to see how far alongside I was and if I had just been a little more aggressive whether I would have got ahead. But he defended it really well and I don't think I could have done better.
"When I was doing the [TV] interviews, that was what I was disappointed in. I'd worked so hard to close that gap and get into the window and he made a mistake which enabled me to be there. To drive all those laps so well and then still come out with the same place I was in is definitely difficult."
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