'The rear of the car just gave out on me'

By David Tremayne at Silverstone Lewis Hamilton came into his crucial home race 10 points adrift of the championship leader, Felipe Massa, and therefore needing to do everything he could in qualifying to give himself the best chance of clawing back some of the lost ground. But instead he ended up fourth on the grid instead of first, the position taken by his McLaren team-mate Heikki Kovalainen. On his first run in the final session Hamilton ran wide into the gravel in the relatively slow left-hand Priory corner, losing valuable time on a lap that had up until that moment looked very quick. "I was very relaxed," he said, "and on my first lap the first two sectors weregood. I just went intoPriory and on the turn-in I had an oversteer moment. I corrected it but ended up in the gravel. On the second lap I just didn't push as much... [read full story]