• McLaren driver started from the back of the grid
• Two-stop strategy works out despite pit-lane mistake

When Lewis Hamilton ran into the Williams motorhome to congratulate Sir Frank Williams here on Sunday, it seemed reasonable to suppose that he was applying for a job.

The gaffes are coming thick and fast at McLaren these days, and Hamilton, more than his team-mate, Jenson Button, has been on the receiving end of them. The sadness is that Hamilton, arguably, is not only driving better than anyone else this season but also as well as he has ever driven. At 27 he is at the peak of his remarkable powers.

He produced an astonishing drive to finish eighth in the Spanish Grand Prix after being flung from pole to the back of the grid as a consequence of running out of fuel during qualifying on Saturday. He cut a swathe through the field from the start, making up five places before he had gone halfway round the first lap. But, almost inevitably, there was yet another cock-up in the pit lane, when he came in for his first stop, at the end of the 14th lap.

As he set off to rejoin the race, his left rear wheel came into contact with another wheel. Uncertain of what had happened, he stopped, and lost at least two more seconds. McLaren had already decided to go for a two-stop strategy to give Hamilton the best opportunity to make up ground through the field.

He had another epic battle with Felipe Massa. But overtaking is not easy at the Circuit de Catalunya and he was mightily relieved when both Massa and Paul Di Resta were brought in to serve drive-through penalties.

That put him up to seventh, and he made it up to fifth before another stop dropped him back into the lower half of the field.

Perhaps the best part of his driving was the way he conserved his tyres as, once more, he clawed his way back through the field to finish in eighth place.

“I am proud of myself and the team,” he said. “We did a good job to come all the way from the back, we battled through, and conserving the tyres was tough.

“Someone told me that I was only the person on a two-stop, so I think that considering everyone keeps telling me that I am hard on tyres and how much smoother my team-mate is, I think that should show them.

“I just nursed them all the way through. I just cleared my mind and got on with it from the back of the grid. It was like being back in the karting days. Sometimes I would turn up with my dad and that is something that we would have to do.”

Even though the weekend was still weighing down heavily upon him, Hamilton had the good sportsmanship to join the throng of other famous names who gathered in the paddock to congratulate Williams for their first victory since 2004.

In the coming days, however, Hamilton will reflect on a weekend – and a season – when the breaks have not come. He has suffered bad luck in each one of the five races. He had better not take up gambling.

Sport: Lewis Hamilton | guardian.co.uk

• McLaren driver showed true greatness, says team principal
• Jenson Button concerned by cars’ lack of race pace

McLaren’s under-fuelling fiasco may have ruined Lewis Hamilton’s Spanish Grand Prix but it appears to have strengthened his position within the team.

The McLaren team principal, Martin Whitmarsh, has been impressed by the way Hamilton responded to the devastating punishment of being flung from pole position to the back of the grid after running out of fuel during Saturday’s qualifying session; cars must be able to give a sample of one litre.

Hamilton, whose contract is up for renewal at the end of the season, then drove heroically to finish eighth, using only a two-stop strategy, and was as high as fourth at one stage.

Whitmarsh said of Hamilton: “I have to say he had some greatness I had not seen before. By the end of our chat he was consoling me. To say I was disappointed is a modest expression of what I felt.

“He was saying we win and lose as a team. He was a great, great driver this weekend. To be a great driver like Fangio you need greatness in handling setbacks, challenges off the track, and he has excelled in that. My affection and admiration for Lewis have been enhanced by events this weekend.”

Last season, with shunts on the track, confrontations with stewards off it, personal difficulties and a flirtation with Red Bull, was Hamilton’s most difficult in Formula One. It is fair to say that in that time Jenson Button became the more popular driver at the Woking-based team. But this year, despite being the innocent victim of one setback after another, as McLaren have done their best to rival the Michael Frayn farce Noises Off, Hamilton has been exemplary.

In all five races, from Melbourne to Barcelona, Hamilton has been dogged by ill fortune. And even on Sunday he suffered yet another mishap in the pits which cost him at least two seconds.

Hamilton said: ” I am always calm with things like that [a qualifying penalty]. But I am constantly growing, so I would agree I took it better.

“Even though I had issues, I have stayed focused and kept my head down and done the best job I could do despite things going on around me. That’s all I can do and that is all I expect – to do my best.

“People always say that I am not very good on my tyres, can’t look after them and can’t make them last, but I was the only one to do a two-stop, so I think that says enough.”

But according to Button the team – like others – are having problems with pace and with coming to terms with the new tyres. He said: “It’s funny when you look at the points that teams scored at the weekend. The two top teams scored eight and six, as teams. Then there’s Lotus with 27 and Williams with 25.

“It’s unbelievable. I don’t feel that our pace is good enough to fight with those guys. My fastest lap of he race was 2.6 seconds slower than Romain Grosjean, and he didn’t even win the race.

“I think we’re struggling in terms of pace and I’m definitely struggling in terms of finding a balance with the car. We haven’t had the pace in the last two races. In reality we don’t understand the tyres. We still have a good car and I think the next race we could be quick again.

“But we won’t understand why we are quick. We might pretend to but we won’t understand. And I’m sure Williams don’t understand why they just won the race here.”

Meanwhile, Whitmarsh has admitted that he should have told Hamilton to abandon his Spanish Grand Prix qualifying lap as soon as the team realised they had not put enough fuel in his car.

“With hindsight I was wrong but I don’t think I or very many people anticipated that, as a consequence, we would be starting from the back of the grid,” he said.

“With hindsight I could have called it a different way, and he could have just come in at the end of the out lap. But, frankly I did not expect the penalty that he received.”

Sport: Lewis Hamilton | guardian.co.uk

• McLaren driver excluded from F1 qualifying over fuel rule
• Hamilton stopped car on track rather than returning to pits

Lewis Hamilton has been demoted from pole position to the back of the grid for Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix for having too little fuel at the end of qualifying. It is the latest incident in a catalogue of pit?lane gaffes for McLaren this season.

The decision means the Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado will start on pole, the first for Williams since Nico Hülkenberg in the rain of Brazil in 2010, with Fernando Alonso alongside for Ferrari. A McLaren spokesman said: “We accept the stewards did not agree with our interpretation of force majeure. Our aim is now to maximise the points we can score tomorrow.”

Hamilton had completed his triumphant lap and was midway round his slow-down lap when his McLaren team ordered him to stop because of a “technical problem”.

FIA rules state a car must return to the pits after qualifying and then have a litre of fuel remaining for a sample to be taken. Whitmarsh claimed 1.3 litres was ultimately extracted, but clearly the additional 0.3 litres – over and above the required one litre – would not have been enough to see Hamilton return to parc fermé. There was substantial doubt that Hamilton would have had that much fuel left after completing his slow-down lap. An F1 car will use about two litres of fuel every lap.

Asked if he was confident that Hamilton’s pole would stand, Whitmarsh said: “I don’t know. I hope so. Lewis did a fantastic job throughout that session, and we’ve all seen how difficult it is at the moment to be consistent. It was a massive margin [half a second] by the situation within Formula One at the moment. He undoubtedly deserves to be there.”

But two hours later the FIA announced they had punished Hamilton severely. The sport’s ruling body said: “A team member had put an insufficient quantity of fuel into the car thereby resulting in the car having to be stopped on the circuit in order to be able to provide the required amount of sampling purposes. As the amount of fuel put into the car is under the complete control of the competitor the stewards cannot accept this as a case of force majeure. The stewards determine that this is a breach of Article 6.6.2 of the FIA Formula One technical regulations and the competitor is accordingly excluded from the results of the qualifying session. The competitor is however allowed to start the race from the back of the grid.”

Hamilton was unavailable for comment but before his demotion he was asked how he would respond if penalised. “I would do everything I could to move up and forwards,” he said. “Definitely the guys at the front have a much easier job because they have clearer air.

“Of course I’ll give it my all, and we’ll give it our all, and I hope with our improved pit stops as well we can make steps forward.”

Hamilton’s team-mate Jenson Button also struggled, managing to secure only 11th – now upgraded to 10th – after failing to find the right setup to resolve understeer. McLaren’s performance here was merely the latest in a series of misfortunes to plague the team.

In Bahrain three weeks ago, the Woking-based team lost their lead in both championships after Hamilton was hit by two slow wheel changes and another indifferent one. He finished eighth. Button had gearbox issues and retired towards the end. Button won the opening race of the season in Melbourne but Hamilton had a software problem with his clutch and there was another issue with his release from the pits after a tyre change.

In Malaysia, Hamilton had problems with his rear left and front right wheels and there an additional difficulty in removing taping from one of his tyres. Then in China, Hamilton was moved back five places on the grid, from second to seventh, after having his gearbox replaced, and in the race Button suffered badly from a slow wheel change.

In contrast it was an excellent day for Williams, despite Bruno Senna spinning off and qualifying 18th. Maldonado’s pole is the team’s 127th, but only the second since 2005 for a marque with nine constructors’ and seven drivers’ titles.

Sport: Lewis Hamilton | guardian.co.uk

• Drivers to hold discussion before Spanish Grand Prix
• Debate prompted by Nico Rosberg incident in Bahrain

Lewis Hamilton’s aggressive driving style will be discussed at what is expected to be a heated drivers’ meeting here on Friday night. Hamilton and Fernando Alonso were both forced wide by the Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg in last month’s Bahrain Grand Prix – Alonso backed off but Hamilton did not slow down and succeeded in passing the equally aggressive Rosberg, even though he had to go beyond the edge of the track to do so, which is against the rules.

Rosberg and Hamilton were cleared by stewards afterwards but that will not stop them being asked to defend their actions in front of their peers on Friday night. The Red Bull driver Mark Webber said on Thursday: “I was surprised that Lewis was allowed to keep his position. It was a situation that Lewis didn’t want to find himself in, off the track, but he stayed with it and ultimately the move was kept. I’m sure we’ll talk about it in the drivers’ briefing.”

When Hamilton was told of this he said he was not surprised. “Mark is probably one of the most – if not the most – outspoken individual here so that is the least I expect from him,” he said.

Ironically, Hamilton’s driving has been at it’s most controlled this season as he has battled to preserve his difficult tyres, and he is second in the championship. He added: “I’m not really bothered, to be honest. It’s in the past for me. I’m a racer and I didn’t feel I was in the wrong. Everyone has a right to their own opinions but it doesn’t mean they are right.

“You can’t see from the camera angles whether I was alongside but I know I was. I had a good slingshot out of the corner and as he [Rosberg] kept going over I had nowhere to go. The wall was quite far away but if it’d been there I would have been in it. We do have to give each other room to a certain extent and not do as Michael’s experience with Rubens.”

He was referring to the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2010 when Michael Schumacher almost shoved Rubens Barrichello into a wall.

But Hamilton appeared to welcome the meeting when he said: “It’s good to have clarity. Whatever they decide, will affect all the drivers.”

Reflecting on the incident with Rosberg he added: “Fortunately neither of us got in trouble, neither of us were hurt, and hopefully we will try and rectify the rules to make them clearer so that we won’t be in that position again.

“Lots of people have commented on it, but the only two people who know exactly what happened are myself and Nico. The footage you have of what occurred is from the front, and it is very difficult to see clearly what happened, whether I was alongside him or not.

“But the stewards made the right decision, and hopefully this weekend we will clarify the rules. Would it have happened if there had been grass or a wall? Probably not. If there had, it would have been an interesting situation.”

That was echoed by Rosberg, who said: “Of course if there had been the barriers at Monaco it would have been a different story, but then again the guys behind would have backed off a lot earlier. In that situation, which I’d probably do again, it was harsh but within the rules, and I didn’t judge I was putting my competitors in danger.”

Hamilton and Rosberg appeared to come under fire from Alonso this week when the Spaniard wrote on his Twitter account: “I think you are going to have fun in future races! You can defend position as you want and you can overtake outside the track! Enjoy!”

Sport: Lewis Hamilton | guardian.co.uk

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• Red Bull’s German goes to top of drivers’ championship
• Lotus take second and third places

Formula One got more than it deserved here on Sunday, a most eventful and sometimes thrilling Bahrain Grand Prix which delivered its fourth winner in as many races for the first time since 1983.

Sebastian Vettel won his first race for the first time in six months, which may be a little harsh in view of the fact that there was not much going on in the winter, but in doing so he went on top of the drivers’ championship, where he now leads Lewis Hamilton by four points. Red Bull also replaced McLaren at the top of the constructors’ race. It was also a heroic afternoon for Lotus, who achieved two podium finishes in a race for the first time since 1979, with Kimi Raikkonen finishing ahead of Romain Grosjean.

However, the successes of Red Bull and Lotus were overshadowed by an afternoon of almost theatrical disaster from McLaren. At least we are talking about disaster in a purely sporting context, on a weekend when life was lost and the safety of others was feared for.

Hamilton, who has been dogged by ill fortune in all four of his races this season, started on the front row of the grid; Button on the second. But both had their races ruined by events out of their control. Two shambolic pit-stops and another indifferent one cost Hamilton the best part of 20 seconds and he came home eighth. Button, meanwhile, struggled with the balance of his car from the outset and shortly after making his fourth pit-stop, with a puncture, he was retired from the race. What is perhaps most disturbing for McLaren is that both drivers struggled for pace all afternoon.

Although four different constructors have won the opening four races McLaren, arguably, have been the most impressive and consistent of the cars this year. Yet now it must feel as though they must start all over again when racing comes back to life in Barcelona in three weeks.

For the unfortunate left-rear wheel man in the McLaren camp this was an awful weekend since he was responsible for both of Hamilton’s hold-ups (he was also the man at fault when Button had a similar problem in China a week ago). He was not on the job when Hamilton came in for a third stop, though at five seconds that was not the swiftest, either.

Martin Whitmarsh, the McLaren team principal, said afterwards: “That was the classic bad day at the office. We had two bad pit-stops, we had a puncture caused by an exhaust failure and we were slow. That is the summary of it. We were reasonable in terms of pace in qualifying but in the race we certainly weren’t. There is no magic in this sport we were clearly just too hard on the tyres. The rear tyres were going away really quickly and both drivers really struggled. We didn’t have the pace and then a few other things went wrong to make it a really difficult afternoon for everyone.”

On Sunday night, however, McLaren rallied round the wheel man at fault for Hamilton’s mishaps. Whitmarsh said: “Any guy who volunteers to be a gun man in a team is a brave guy. I have been speaking to him just now because I know how hard he is being on himself. The first one ‘pegged’, that is when the right pegs don’t find the right holes. The second one was a cross thread which was the same as we had last week, the same axel on the same side.

“You can imagine the pressure on these guys. They are mechanics who don’t get paid extra for doing it. They put themselves in the firing line. Naturally I am very protective of them. They are brave, they volunteer for it. We have got to look at the equipment, the process and the approach.”

He added, talking about the wheel man: “We changed him for the last stop of the race because he took it very badly and it is our job to support him.”

Hamilton said: “I don’t even know who [the wheel man] is. But I will go and see the guys in a little bit and try to lift them up. There’s not much more I can do really. Just try to do my best and keep them positive.

“Today we really struggled for pace. Sebastian was really pulling away at a good second per lap. We struggled with pace and struggled with tyres. We just weren’t quick at all today. I still think we could have got fourth or fifth but to end up eighth with the poor pit-stops was a little bit disappointing but that’s motor racing.”

Button said: “My final stint was a long one and if I hadn’t struck trouble, I reckon things would have got quite interesting in the final laps. But in the last few laps, the car sounded really noisy. I think the initial problem was an exhaust failure, then my puncture, and then a differential failure; so I had to retire.”

It was like old times as Vettel tore away from his pole position to widen his advantage. It was an awful start for Button, who slid back from fourth on the grid to sixth but the best getaway was made by Fernando Alonso, who went from ninth to fifth.

McLaren were having problems from an early stage, with both Hamilton and Vettel complaining about their rear tyres. But things started to get worse for Hamilton on the ninth lap, when his pit stop cost him 9.9sec as he was passed by Alonso and Mark Webber. He was seen shaking his head as he waited for the signal to go. And when he eventually left the pit-lane he said: “What happened there guys?” But judging by further failings, McLaren did not really know. Whitmarsh said: “It is a much more interesting championship right now that I would like it to be.”

His Red Bull opposite number Christian Horner said: “It has been a tough weekend for the sport. F1 has received an awful lot of attention and it is very easy to have opinions. We focused on the sport. We have come, done our best and won the race we nearly won two years but for a spark plug. We need to move on now and focus on next race.”

Sport: Lewis Hamilton | guardian.co.uk

• Red Bull’s German goes to top of drivers’ championship
• Lotus take second and third places

Formula One got more than it deserved here on Sunday, a most eventful and sometimes thrilling Bahrain Grand Prix which delivered its fourth winner in as many races for the first time since 1983.

Sebastian Vettel won his first race for the first time in six months, which may be a little harsh in view of the fact that there was not much going on in the winter, but in doing so he went on top of the drivers’ championship, where he now leads Lewis Hamilton by four points. Red Bull also replaced McLaren at the top of the constructors’ race. It was also a heroic afternoon for Lotus, who achieved two podium finishes in a race for the first time since 1979, with Kimi Raikkonen finishing ahead of Romain Grosjean.

However, the successes of Red Bull and Lotus were overshadowed by an afternoon of almost theatrical disaster from McLaren. At least we are talking about disaster in a purely sporting context, on a weekend when life was lost and the safety of others was feared for.

Hamilton, who has been dogged by ill fortune in all four of his races this season, started on the front row of the grid; Button on the second. But both had their races ruined by events out of their control. Two shambolic pit-stops and another indifferent one cost Hamilton the best part of 20 seconds and he came home eighth. Button, meanwhile, struggled with the balance of his car from the outset and shortly after making his fourth pit-stop, with a puncture, he was retired from the race. What is perhaps most disturbing for McLaren is that both drivers struggled for pace all afternoon.

Although four different constructors have won the opening four races McLaren, arguably, have been the most impressive and consistent of the cars this year. Yet now it must feel as though they must start all over again when racing comes back to life in Barcelona in three weeks.

For the unfortunate left-rear wheel man in the McLaren camp this was an awful weekend since he was responsible for both of Hamilton’s hold-ups (he was also the man at fault when Button had a similar problem in China a week ago). He was not on the job when Hamilton came in for a third stop, though at five seconds that was not the swiftest, either.

Martin Whitmarsh, the McLaren team principal, said afterwards: “That was the classic bad day at the office. We had two bad pit-stops, we had a puncture caused by an exhaust failure and we were slow. That is the summary of it. We were reasonable in terms of pace in qualifying but in the race we certainly weren’t. There is no magic in this sport we were clearly just too hard on the tyres. The rear tyres were going away really quickly and both drivers really struggled. We didn’t have the pace and then a few other things went wrong to make it a really difficult afternoon for everyone.”

On Sunday night, however, McLaren rallied round the wheel man at fault for Hamilton’s mishaps. Whitmarsh said: “Any guy who volunteers to be a gun man in a team is a brave guy. I have been speaking to him just now because I know how hard he is being on himself. The first one ‘pegged’, that is when the right pegs don’t find the right holes. The second one was a cross thread which was the same as we had last week, the same axel on the same side.

“You can imagine the pressure on these guys. They are mechanics who don’t get paid extra for doing it. They put themselves in the firing line. Naturally I am very protective of them. They are brave, they volunteer for it. We have got to look at the equipment, the process and the approach.”

He added, talking about the wheel man: “We changed him for the last stop of the race because he took it very badly and it is our job to support him.”

Hamilton said: “I don’t even know who [the wheel man] is. But I will go and see the guys in a little bit and try to lift them up. There’s not much more I can do really. Just try to do my best and keep them positive.

“Today we really struggled for pace. Sebastian was really pulling away at a good second per lap. We struggled with pace and struggled with tyres. We just weren’t quick at all today. I still think we could have got fourth or fifth but to end up eighth with the poor pit-stops was a little bit disappointing but that’s motor racing.”

Button said: “My final stint was a long one and if I hadn’t struck trouble, I reckon things would have got quite interesting in the final laps. But in the last few laps, the car sounded really noisy. I think the initial problem was an exhaust failure, then my puncture, and then a differential failure; so I had to retire.”

It was like old times as Vettel tore away from his pole position to widen his advantage. It was an awful start for Button, who slid back from fourth on the grid to sixth but the best getaway was made by Fernando Alonso, who went from ninth to fifth.

McLaren were having problems from an early stage, with both Hamilton and Vettel complaining about their rear tyres. But things started to get worse for Hamilton on the ninth lap, when his pit stop cost him 9.9sec as he was passed by Alonso and Mark Webber. He was seen shaking his head as he waited for the signal to go. And when he eventually left the pit-lane he said: “What happened there guys?” But judging by further failings, McLaren did not really know. Whitmarsh said: “It is a much more interesting championship right now that I would like it to be.”

His Red Bull opposite number Christian Horner said: “It has been a tough weekend for the sport. F1 has received an awful lot of attention and it is very easy to have opinions. We focused on the sport. We have come, done our best and won the race we nearly won two years but for a spark plug. We need to move on now and focus on next race.”

Sport: Lewis Hamilton | guardian.co.uk

• McLaren’s Hamilton fastest for third successive F1 race
• Sebastian Vettel and Paul di Resta second and third

Lewis Hamilton led the way in first practice for the third consecutive race, ahead of for Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix.

After topping the timesheet in Malaysia and China at the end of the opening 90-minute session, Hamilton again proved to be the man to beat on Friday morning.

As Formula One returned to the Bahrain International Circuit for the first time since 2010 following the cancellation of last year’s race due to violent anti-government protests, Hamilton was quickly on the pace. The F1 championship leader posted a lap of 1min 33.572sec on a track that has reverted back to its 2004-2009 configuration in the wake of a failed experiment in 2010 when it was lengthened.

In his McLaren, the 27-year-old finished 0.305 ahead of Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull’s reigning world champion, with Paul di Resta third for Force India.

The Scot, however, did apparently run on the softer option tyre, compared to the harder mediums used by those around him, with his team-mate Nico Hülkenberg doing similar and winding up sixth.

The duo finished 0.578 and 0.77 behind Hamilton, with Sunday’s debut winner Nico Rosberg in his Mercedes fourth and Jenson Button in his McLaren fifth.

Mercedes’s Michael Schumacher was seventh and Red Bull’s Mark Webber eighth, both within a second of Hamilton, while the Lotuses of Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean completed the top 10.

The Ferrari duo of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa, meanwhile, were a lowly 13th and 15th, around two seconds off the pace.

Sport: Lewis Hamilton | guardian.co.uk

Underdogs winning and former champions scrapping for the minor placings? Long may this curious start continue

For a couple of hours or so we were given respite from the topic which presides menacingly over Formula One like a thunder cloud, which is Bahrain and the abject folly of the decision to race there next Sunday.

In this period of remission we were reminded of the fact that Nico Rosberg is a driver capable of sustaining a combination of speed and precision over 56 laps.

And, even more importantly, we were nudged further towards the happy suspicion that this could be one of the vintage seasons in F1, with the world championship unlikely to be dominated by any one driver, as was the case with Sebastian Vettel last year.

The three races so far have been won by three different drivers and three different teams. McLaren may lead both world championships but they are not permitted to swagger just yet, certainly not before Barcelona next month when all cars will be upgraded in varying degrees.

Mercedes have looked good in qualifying in all the events, only to fluff their lines on Sunday afternoon. But here they established themselves as serious players. And it was not all because of that refined F-duct.

Rosberg – who had already proved himself to be quicker than his team-mate Michael Schumacher over a single lap – is fast, and so is his car, without any controversial additives.

Mercedes spent the winter recruiting extravagantly. We already knew that Ross Brawn was one of the great team leaders. But now, just behind him, he has Bob Bell, Geoff Willis and Aldo Costa.

The only concern was that too many chefs might spoil the banquet. But that does not appear to be the case and the new WO3 model will not be content to be a distant fourth, which was the case with the team last year.

After two disappointing seasons the Silver Arrow is back. But what has most impressed in this still embryonic season is the midfield, which looks as good as Barcelona’s.

Lotus, Sauber, and Williams have all caught the eye and on Sunday the Williams pair of Bruno Senna and Pastor Maldonado both finished in the top eight. The competition between Paul Di Resta and Nico Hülkenberg at Force India could also be a minor classic in the months ahead.

Apart from the winner, the two drivers most enjoyable to watch were Lewis Hamilton and Vettel. I have never seen Hamilton so happy to finish third, for he is dedicated to winning.

It might have something to do with the fact that he leads the championship. And he has a good car. But he looked a contented man in Shanghai, which is not something that could have been said last year. He even managed to pass Felipe Massa without clattering into him.

While Rosberg continued on his serene course to the chequered flag Hamilton appeared to relish in the cut and thrust of the fight behind the leader. ”There was a serious train of cars out there,” he said afterwards, grinning, with pure enthusiasm.

Hamilton, remember, was awarded a five-place grid penalty before the race. It wasn’t his fault – it was because he needed a new gearbox – but it still would have been enough to make him sulk last year.

I enjoyed watching Vettel even more than his compatriot, Rosberg. Because this was a Vettel we have not seen much of before, harrying and hustling, fighting off Hamilton for a while and then, after being overtaken, trying to get his position back, even though he knew his car lacked power in a straight line and that his tyres were spent. This was a double world champion showing his pedigree.

“We were generally too slow on the straights,” he said. “We were losing a lot of time there. That made it extremely difficult to pass, to be honest.”

Vettel started in 11th position and quickly went backwards. He admitted: “I think I missed out a little bit on the start. I was a bit too late. I wasn’t entirely happy finding the revs and I was a bit confused. Usually I’m pretty quick when the lights go off, but today I think I was one of the last ones. I didn’t wake up enough.

“Then I was behind the Williams and at Turn 1 they crashed into each other a little bit and I had to hit the brakes and I didn’t know what was going to happen. Then I lost another couple of positions – I nearly lost a position to Heikki Kovalainen in the Caterham so I think it was a really bad stage on the first lap. With the strategy we managed to kind of come back.”

It was a nightmare for the strategists on the pit-wall in Shanghai. But great fun for the rest of us.

Sport: Lewis Hamilton | guardian.co.uk

• Hamilton second fastest behind Schumacher in practice
• McLaren driver to incur grid penalty for gearbox change

Lewis Hamilton is relishing the prospect of fighting for a podium place this weekend following an encouraging start to his Chinese Grand Prix campaign. With his McLaren sporting an upgrade, Hamilton finished quickest at the end of a changeable first practice session at the Shanghai International Circuit, and second to Mercedes’s Michael Schumacher in the later 90-minute run by 0.172sec.

The 27-year-old British driver is favourite to finish quickest in qualifying, even if he will not start from pole on Sunday. That is because of a five-place grid penalty he will incur due to a change of gearbox that will take place on Saturday after a fault was discovered in the week.

Despite that, after mastering the cold, damp, grey conditions, with temperatures reaching a maximum of 15C, Hamilton said: “It’s been a great day. It stayed dry in the afternoon so we successfully got through our run programme. We’re still working away to improve the set-up, but the new bits on the car seem to be working. The guys back at the factory have done a great job. We look competitive, and I’ve been particularly focusing on the longer runs for this weekend. We still need to make a few improvements, but our car looks good.”

After starting on pole at the opening two races in Australia and Malaysia, only to finish third in both, Hamilton said: “I’ll be changing the gearbox on my car before P3. It’s going to be a close qualifying session tomorrow. It’ll be a good battle. Hopefully we can start as high up the grid as possible because I think we’ll still be in the race and among the leading group. I love the challenge of coming through and gaining positions.”

It was a different tale for his team-mate, Jenson Button, who struggled to get any heat into his tyres and finished three-quarters of a second behind Schumacher, who posted a time of 1min 35.973sec in his Mercedes. “It’s been a little bit of a difficult day for me,” said the 32-year-old. “I was trying to find a good set-up, but the cold weather made it difficult to understand the car because the tyres weren’t working perfectly.

“Tomorrow should be a bit warmer than today, but we don’t quite understand the tyre temperatures and can’t get them quite in the right area. If we make a set-up change and the tyre temp changes by five or 10 degrees, then that change goes out the window. That’s something for us to sort out, but we’ve a lot of useful information from the low and high fuel runs. It’s been a tricky day, but there’s a lot of good information to go through – we’ll find a better direction overnight.”

Sandwiching Hamilton in second and Button in sixth were the reigning champion, Sebastian Vettel, for Red Bull and his team-mate Mark Webber, with Mercedes’s Nico Rosberg in fifth. Force India’s Paul Di Resta, who was forced to make way for the test and reserve driver Jules Bianchi in the first session, finished a creditable eighth quickest in FP2. The Scot was a second down on Schumacher, but 0.225sec ahead of his team-mate, Nico Hulkenberg, who had enjoyed the benefit of running in FP1.

Timo Glock has been given the all-clear for Saturday after hurting his hand when crashing into a tyre wall due to a fault with the nose box on his Marussia. The German said: “There is damage to the car, as you might expect from the impact, but it is mainly cosmetic and the chassis is fine. A long night for the mechanics I think, so a frustrating outcome all round to an otherwise trouble-free day. Personally I am fine. Initially I had some pain in my hand from the steering wheel when I hit the wall, but no lasting damage.”

Sport: Lewis Hamilton | guardian.co.uk