Hamilton on the right track

FORMULA ONE MONACO GP:IN THE run-up to this year's Monaco Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton revealed that for this race he'll unveil a change of helmet colours, in the hope the redesign will signal a new phase in his season. "When you see it," he said, "you'll know why I'll be hoping for it to swing the odds in my favour."

It would be cruel to say that at this stage of a season in which he’s already taken 49 points he needs anything he can get. After all, in the opening five races of the campaign Hamilton has finished outside the points just once, last time out in Spain where a wheel rim failure sent him crashing into the barriers with just two laps remaining. Even then he was running second when calamity struck. Prior to that too he has delivered drives of skill, aggression and bravery, such as that in Malaysia, where he started a desultory 20th and finished an exemplary sixth.

But still the impression exists Hamilton is a man racing in the shadows, eclipsed by a team-mate he was supposed to dismiss and forever chasing the tails of the fleeter Red Bulls and the nous and sheer bloody-mindedness of former team-mate Fernando Alonso.

The received wisdom is that the kind of drive that earned Hamilton eight points in Malaysia is at the root of in problems this season. The British driver’s take-no-prisoners style may have worked there but in a season where cars must race from start to finish on one tank of fuel, an initial weight penalty that contributes to tyre wear, his aggression is ill-considered.

By contrast, Jenson Button is widely regarded as perhaps F1’s smoothest driver. More wily and certainly more charismatic than Hamilton, Button has marshalled his side of the garage with comparative ease. On track clever tyre choices in Australia and in China put him in contention for victories when his solid qualifying session shouldn’t have allowed it. Wins at those venues were sealed by the kind of percentage driving Hamilton seems incapable of delivering. He appears to be, if not drowning, then wavering.

This week, former McLaren engineer Joan Villadelprat accused Hamilton of being too aggressive, suggesting he needs to rein in his attacking instincts. "Lewis Hamilton needs to calm down a bit to get the most out of his potential," Valldelprat wrote in Spanish newspaper El Pais. "His history has shown that as a result of aggressive driving, he is one of the drivers who most consumes his tyres – and now that the tyres must withstand runs in excess of 50 laps, that can cause many problems."

Hamilton, though, has been at pains to deny the accusation, insisting this week he has no problem in nursing his tyres through a race. “I know how to look after my tyres,” he said. “People often write is that I’m very aggressive with my tyres, and it’s quite the opposite. When Bridgestone come to us afterwards and they tell us how we’re doing, I’m usually kind of mid way, or one of the better guys on my tyres.”

Hamilton’s McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh defended the 2008 champion too, pointing to Hamilton’s ability to work through the field when needed as a strength to match Button’s more cultured and analytical style.

This afternoon, and tomorrow, Formula One will revert to a more Hamilton-friendly arena, a place where racing becomes a function of skill, co-ordination and the sort of blissfully quick reaction times Hamilton is gifted with. Today could just mark the point where that new helmet become something of a lucky charm.