The 28-year-old was quick to stress after the race that he would not allow
those personal issues to affect his on-track performance in any way. “I have
proved time and time again that I am able to focus, it is never in
question,” he claimed, perhaps forgetting the 2010 and 2011 seasons when, by
his own admission, he lost focus due to the “pieces in the jigsaw” of his
life being all over the place.
Hamilton did, however, admit that he would need to keep himself busy over the
coming weeks – Mercedes are banned from next week’s Silverstone tyre test –
for fear of letting his mind wander. He said he would get stuck in to plenty
of training, some time at the factory, and perhaps in the recording studio
as well. “I am more successful in the studio [than on the track] at the
moment,” he joked.
Of more concern to him right now, Hamilton said, was the inconsistency of his
Mercedes machine. And it was here, in particular, that he rejected direct
comparisons with Murray, Britain’s newest sporting darling.
“Formula One is a bit of a lottery; one race you’re good and one race you’re
bad,” Hamilton said when asked if he needed to get into the same head space
as the Scot. “You don’t know when it is going to happen. It is crazy that
you can go from where we were at Silverstone, quick enough to beat the Red
Bulls, to a race where they were miles ahead again.
“It is different for Andy [Murray] that is just him as a human being. It is
him and the racket. So many elements come into motor racing. There is the
electronics performing, the suspension, the frickin’ tyres, things that are
out of my control. It doesn’t matter if I am in the same head space as Andy
is right now because it is taken away from me by things like the tyres.”