Raikkonen exited the pits just as team-mate Romain Grosjean, who had started
second, came screaming down the main straight, causing their engineers to
sweat as they went through turn one side by side and the Finn forced the
Frenchman wide in order to steal the racing line and hunt Hamilton.
He was soon within a second of the Briton, but the McLaren driver was able to
eke out faster third sectors, protecting himself down the main straight.
There were no other opportunities for the Lotus to pass.
”I was under a lot of pressure throughout all 69 laps,” said Hamilton, who
has only won one other round this season.
”First, Romain and then Kimi were right behind me, all the way through, and I
had to look after my tyres without letting my pace drop, which was pretty
tricky at times.
”It isn’t a static situation when a race goes like that. The feel of the car
is changing all the time. You get different messages from the tyres with
every lap. But they lasted – I managed to make them last.
”It was a case of managing the gap behind me, over the whole lap, every lap.
In particular, I had to make sure that, every lap, I always had a big enough
gap at the last corner, so that I wouldn’t be overtaken in the DRS zone on
the pit straight. And I managed to do that every time.”
Grosjean held on to third ahead of world champion Sebastian Vettel, who made a
third pit stop without losing a place and charged back to attack the Lotus
on fresh, soft tyres but to no avail.
Alonso calmly protected his points lead on a tough day for Ferrari, finishing
fifth.
Hamilton, whose championship hopes were dented after he retired at Hockenheim
last time out, added: ”This weekend shows it’s all to play for still. After
some bad races it’s good to be back.”
He moved one point ahead of Raikkonen to fourth in the championship standings
with 117 points. Alonso stretched his lead over Mark Webber with 164 points
to the Australian’s 124. Vettel remained third with 122, closing the gap to
his Red Bull team-mate.