Formula 1 World Championship leader
Lewis Hamilton has insisted that he is ‘already getting over' a massively disappointing and frustrating Japanese Grand Prix this weekend that saw him collide with title rival
Felipe Massa and fail to score for the first time in eight outings.
The result – twelfth place at the chequered flag – means the McLaren-Mercedes star heads into the final two grands prix of the 2008 campaign with a reduced five-point advantage over Massa at the top of the drivers' table, and incredibly with no victory to his name since Hockenheim back in July, his Spa-Francorchamps ‘on-the-road' triumph excepted.
Hamilton clearly believed his return to the highest step of the podium would come this weekend, in a race he had dominated in atrocious conditions twelve months earlier, and for which he took an unchallenged pole position, with Massa back in fifth.
However, a poor start saw the 23-year-old seem to lose his head into the first corner, as he left his braking impossibly late in an effort to regain the lead, and tyre smoke peeled off his locked-up wheels as the pack was sent scattering wide in his wake.
Worse still was to follow, however, as in endeavouring to fight his way back up through the field, a golden opportunity to overtake Massa when the
Ferrari ran wide ultimately turned out to be a poisoned chalice, as the Brazilian shot across the grass – and straight into the side of Hamilton's car.
That left the Briton needing to pit to both get his suspension checked out and to change his badly flat-spotted tyres, and a subsequent drive-through penalty for his first corner misdemeanour left him some way down the field. Thereafter his lap times proved to be uncompetitive – his best a full second slower than Massa's fastest effort – and points elusive.
“Obviously I'm not happy after a result like today's,” the Stevenage-born ace confessed, “but I'm already getting over it and tomorrow will be another day. Disappointingly, I didn't make a great start, but I slip-streamed Kimi and went up the inside.
