After a 2011 season that was overshadowed by stories of his troubled personal life, Hamilton has hit the reset button over the winter and is ready to do what he does best: take the fight to the other F1 front runners.

But its hard to completely shed baggage in this game; at the same time he got a brickbat from his old friend Adrian Sutil who was angry that Hamilton had not given evidence at his trial for GBH nor sent him a message of support. He called the 2008 champion a “coward” for ducking the call to appear in court.

A frustrated Sutil told Bild newspaper in his native Germany, “Lewis is a coward. I do not want to be friends with someone like that. He is for me no man. Even his father sent me a text message and wished me luck for the process. Lewis came with nothing. He has changed his phone number. I could not reach him any more.”

There have been no denials about this quote – unlike a recent quote from a McLaren Applied Technologies boss which appeared to heap praise on Sebastian Vettel over the McLaren duo, which was denied by the team.

Hamilton was with Sutil in the Shanghai nightclub where the offence occurred, but has since distanced himself from the episode and ducked questions about it today, with a team spokesman intervening to say that as the verdict may be appealed, it was inappropriate for Hamilton to comment.

It’s a sad episode where no-one comes out a winner. The victim Eric Lux wanted Sutil to pay a price for leaving him bleeding in the club, photos of the wound in the hospital showed a savage gash to the side of Lux’s neck. The Lotus Renault team boss could not understand how anyone with any compassion could leave someone in that state without offering to help.

Sutil became damaged goods in the eyes of some of the team bosses in the round of negotiations over 2012 seats and this leaves him without one.

Another off track distraction Hamilton is keen to avoid developing into a saga is his contract renewal. “That’s going to be a big topic,” he admitted today.

Hamilton’s long term deal expires at the end of the year. Jenson Button is already confirmed for a minimum of three more years with the team. To get his price up at McLaren, Hamilton’s agents may flirt with Mercedes. Or he may play for a short contract to leave his options open with Red Bull, with Vettel’s deal due to expire in 2014.

“I think probably after the first couple of races it’s something we will probably want to get out of the way so we can focus on the rest of the year without the team being concerned and without it being something that’s just hanging around for us so then you guys won’t be having to ask questions about it,” said Hamilton.

One is about team mate Jenson Button, the other on Felipe Massa.

On Button he says, “Jenson is very fast and has built around himself a very strong team of technicians. I always want to beat him and I’m never happy if I don’t. But psychologically I don’t see it as a problem. He’s an open person who you can get along with.

“It would be great to fight with him for the world title in 2012, it just depends on the McLaren car.”

This is interesting in that Hamilton highlights the way that Button has integrated himself into the McLaren team and made sure to build around him the team he needs. Having the support network around you in a team is such an important part of doing well in F1.

Both men sent out Christmas cards this year and the difference in them was quiet striking; Button’s was a jokey photo of himself in the cockpit of his car surrounded by this “team of technicians”, engineers and mechanics, all wearing santa hats and pulling faces.

Hamilton’s was a simple shot of him driving his car at high speed. (McLaren’s incidentally, was a very even handed shot of the two cars side by side, racing on snow)

Although a trivial point it says something about what both wanted to say about themselves at the end of 2011.

Both men had new engineers, incidentally, last season. For 2012 the track operations side will be overseen by Sam Michael, so it will be very interesting to see what changes he makes and how the two drivers operate when seeking to get the best support for themselves.

Hamilton says that the Red Bull will be the car to beat but adds that “the new McLaren seems far superior to last year’s car.”

On Massa, with whom Hamilton had several run-ins last season, he says, “We often found ourselves close together and Massa is a difficult driver to pass because he never gives you any room. But it’s not something to over-dramatize. I have nothing against him.”

To say that another driver doesn’t give you any room, isn’t to accuse him of anything, but it does imply that he doesn’t race fairly. This was a real talking point in 2011, with Michael Schumacher also on the limit of what was correct when covering a position in a battle. And it’s likely to be a talking point again this year as the DRS wing and Pirelli short life tyres create an increasing number of overtaking opportunities.

Yesterday the FIA issued the final technical and sporting regulations for the 2012 F1 season and there is a change of wording about what is permissible when defending a line into a corner.

“More than one change of direction to defend a position is not permitted,” says article 20.3. “Any driver moving back towards the racing line, having earlier defended his position off‐line, should leave at least one car width between his own car and the edge of the track on the approach to the corner.”

In other words, as the edge of the track on the entry to the corner is usually where the racing line is to be found, the driver defending cannot move back fully onto the racing line once he’s covered off a dive down the inside.

This is likely to still be problematic this season as we have seen time and again that definitions and interpretations can vary. Judging what constitutes a car’s width when moving sideways, looking in the mirrors and braking from 200 mph for a corner isn’t always going to be clear cut.

It does give the stewards some clear guidelines to work to, but what will be needed in 2012 is consistency from the stewards in applying the rule. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.

The Brazilian was finishing off his press briefing at the front of the Ferrari hospitality area when Hamilton approached him and gave him a hug and said a few words.

It is not clear whether Hamilton felt moved to make some kind of apology or just a gesture to say that he wanted to put the events behind them. But either way, Massa, who earlier in the race had had another battle with the McLaren driver, this time without incident, accepted the gesture and said he appreciated Hamilton doing it.

“It was good to have a nice chat with Felipe after the race, ” said Hamilton. “I have great respect for him and I’m already looking forward to racing him again next year.”

For his part, Massa, who had always maintained that Hamilton was at fault in all six of their collisions, said, “I want to say I was pleased Lewis came round to see me while I was talking to the journalists. It was a very nice gesture on his part.”

Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali said, “I was very pleased to see today Lewis Hamilton come in here and hugging Felipe. At the end of the day that is what it is all about. It was a good gesture and I am very happy that today this was pretty clear.”

McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of the day, just over a tenth clear of Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, but the long runs were interesting. The Red Bull was 8/10ths faster than the McLaren, but allowing for the difference in fuel loads, they were close.

Red Bull tends to do its long runs using the fuel load it would typically start the second stint of the race with, while McLaren tend to run with full tanks. Allowing for the difference in weight their lap times are closely matched.

Ferrari is again a little bit back from the front two teams, with Mercedes a little closer than they have been. In the midfield battle Force India look in good shape to make it into the top ten in qualifying. They lie 15 points behind Renault so they need both cars solidly in the points on Sunday to have a chance of moving up to fifth in the constructors’ championship.

Further back, Lotus look they have made a step forward with their new rear wing, which has better downforce and a bigger DRS effect than before. The update looks to be worth several tenths of a second; not enough to catch the midfield cars in qualifying, but they may be able to race with Williams.

This is a track where the exhaust blown diffusers, making their final outing before being banned next year, are very important. It is very apparent, for example, from watching and listening at the entry to the Senna S how much the systems are working on the car, giving a lot of extra rear-end grip. Some drivers are using this grip to take more aggressive lines over kerbs around the track.

What was also apparent today with the Pirelli tyres is that the rear tyres are the limiting factor, as has been the case in the past with the Bridgestones. But the soft tyre looks like it will last at least 20 laps, so a two stop strategy is a good bet for many runners.

That said, the rain showers which were forecast at 60% likelihood earlier in the week now look almost certain to come and teams prepared today with that in mind. Last year’s qualifying was rain affected and we could see showers both tomorrow and on Sunday.

This would make qualifying more of a lottery than Vettel would like; he needs one more podium to set a new record for a season at 15.

It would also mean that if the race started wet, but dried out, teams would not need to use the slower medium tyre during the race. The tyre looks to be between 0.8s to 1 sec per lap slower than the soft.

“It’s been a year of growth, which was one of the most positive things I have learned this year,” he said. “It really has been. What I’ve learned this year I’ll take into next so I feel positive about it. I think in the future I’ll look back on this season, smile and say ‘I needed that’.”

This has happened before. He had a tough 2009 season on the track and came out fighting at the start of 2010, leading the championship through the summer of that year.

This year his incident strewn season, laced with the anguish of a private life which wasn’t going smoothly, has asked a lot of questions about him and he’s been beaten by team mate Jenson Button, the first time that’s happened.

I asked him whether he thinks that the torrid experiences of 2011 have made him stronger as a driver and as a man,

“I think I will come out stronger,” he said. “I can’t say I am there yet, but when I get to the winter and reflect on the whole season I will. I’m definitely a lot wiser than when I started the season and that’s always a positive.”

“I’ve been reminded this year just how important family is.”

I also asked him about the way he approaches his racing. When he came into the sport in 2007 with his Dad egging him on his approach was very intense, very focussed and in the last couple of seasons, as life outside racing has evolved, it’s been clear that his focus has wavered at times. This is something he’s very aware of and the hope is that having seen both sides, he will be able to restore intensity at the same time as knowing how to keep a balance in life,

“Its about striking a balance – you can be too serious, too intense, or not serious enough,” he said. “I’ve been racing since I was eight years old and I still don’t have the right formula for it. Obviously the car has a big impact on that, but every year is a journey to finding the right solution.”

I think this is the key for Hamilton. His peaks – like Germany – have been very high, as high as any driver in the field. But he’s also lost his way this year, with the rather impulsive moves which brought him in front of the stewards more often than not.

Also distracting was the break up of his relationship with the singer Nicole Scherzinger, but he said today that the black necklace he was very conspicuously wearing outside his McLaren team shirt, with a black cross on the end, had been a gift from her recently and suggested that he’d had some very positive experiences since Abu Dhabi, which she was involved in, even if there is not a suggestion that they have got back together again yet.

“We had a really good week. a couple of really nice lunches together,” said Hamilton.

“It’s very early days and we still have very strong feelings for one another and I still love her very much. So who knows? Maybe we will be together in the future.”

Hamilton will be wearing a special helmet this weekend, a blend of his colours and Ayrton Senna’s colours with the famous Senna S logo on the back. The helmet will be auctioned off for charity after the race.

It was Hamilton’s 17th career victory and his third of this season and although he said he felt “fantastic” he was also pretty humble in his post race statements, saying that one win hadn’t necessarily put him back on track, he felt above all “fortunate not to get into any trouble.”

It was a day when the Red Bull team was less than the flawless outfit we have seen all season; Sebastian Vettel had a puncture which led to a suspension breakage on the way back to the pits on the opening lap and Mark Webber’s first pit stop was very slow and took him out of contention of the battle with Jenson Button for the podium. But he lit up the second half of the race with some bold overtakes as he took on a very ambitious three stop strategy to successfully jump Felipe Massa.

But it was the first time in 20 races that a Red Bull driver has not stood on the podium.

In contrast to last year’s event where there were only 11 on track passes, this race featured plenty of spectacular overtaking throughout the field, although most of it down to DRS. The double DRS zone made things difficult for some drivers who passed their opponents in the first zone and were then repassed in the second.

That said there were a lot of problems with backmarkers costing the leaders time, the stewards looking into several examples with Pastor Maldonado being a leading culprit. He was given a penalty for blocking.

Leaders also lost time behind backmarkers on the way in and out of the pits. Fernando Alonso came into the pits for the second time right behind the HRT of Daniel Ricciardo, which cost him a chance to get close on the exit. Traffic for Hamilton meant that Alonso was around 20 seconds when he went for the pits, with a stop taking 22 seconds.

Paul di Resta, Kamui Kobayashi and Pastor Maldonado all started the on the medium compound tyre, a tactical gamble looking at trying to do a one stop race.

The track temperature was 31 degrees when the race started, similar to the start of qualifying.

At the start Sebastian Vettel, starting form pole, had a failure of the right rear tyre which pitched him into a spin, he returned to the pits but it wasn’t safe to continue.

“I saw immediately something happened to his tyre and I just made sure I didn’t collect him. This is one of my best races against one of the best drivers in the world (Alonso). I feel fantastic,” said Hamilton. “We were very quick and it would have been very close (with Vettel) but every now and then you need a but of bad luck to enjoy the good times. I don’t remember when he last had bad luck.”

Vettel’s retirement left Hamilton out front with Alonso moving impressively from 5th to 2nd on the opening lap, past Webber and Button, who also swapped places a couple of times.

Schumacher and Rosberg had a ferocious scrap on the opening lap, Rosberg getting ahead in the early stages.

Di Resta’s pace on the medium tyre was impressive in the first stint, lapping faster than team mate Sutil on soft tyres by lap 7.

By lap 13 Webber had got close enough to Button to activate the DRS and started attacking. Button was struggling with a KERS problem that meant not only did he lack the power boost it gives, but also his braking was affected.

On lap 17 the three leaders came in, Hamilton, Alonso and Button, while Mark Webber stayed out, but a slow stop spoiled his chances of jumping Button for third place and he fell behind Felipe Massa into 5th place.

Webber and Massa had a double DRS battle on lap 31, the Australian taking advantage of a mistake by Massa to pass in the first zone, but overshooting the braking zone as he tried to stay out of Massa’s way, Massa sailed back past him in the second zone.

The second stops came from lap 36 onwards, with Webber taking a third set of soft tyres, requiring another pit stop to run the medium.

Alonso came into the game when Hamilton lost time behind traffic, but Alonso found Ricciardo coming in ahead of him, it was close as the Spaniard exited the pits but Hamilton stayed in front.

Webber’s bold three stopper called for him to build a 22 second gap over Massa before a final stop at the end. He was helped in this by Massa picking up some debris from a Williams on lap 46 and a spin on lap 50. The Brazilian has yet to register a podium finish in 2011.

“When I was doing the in lap I was thinking this was one of my best wins,” said Hamilton. “With all the doubt that’s been around me. And it’s my Mum’s birthday so that makes it even better.

“This weekend I’ve been clearer in my mind, I’ve had less weighing on me. I was able to drive clearly. In the last race I had that mistake, but here I didn’t make a mistake. I feel fortunate to have finished and not get in any trouble.”

Alonso’s 9th podium of the season means that he is now 10 points behind Button and has a chance to finish second in the world championship.

Meanwhile the only dark cloud on Hamilton’s day is that the gap between him and Button is now down to 28 points, meaning that he will definitely finish behind a team mate for the first time in his F1 career, as there are a maximum 25 points available in the final race in Brazil.

Check out the UBS Strategy Report on Tuesday with a full analysis of how the strategies were decided in today’s race

ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX, Yas Marina Circuit, 55 Laps
1. Hamilton McLaren 1h37:11.886
2. Alonso Ferrari + 8.457
3. Button McLaren + 25.881
4. Webber Red Bull + 35.784
5. Massa Ferrari + 50.578
6. Rosberg Mercedes + 52.317
7. Schumacher Mercedes + 1:15.900
8. Sutil Force India + 1:17.100
9. Di Resta Force India + 1:40.000
10. Kobayashi Sauber + 1 lap
11. Perez Sauber + 1 lap
12. Barrichello Williams + 1 lap
13. Petrov Renault + 1 lap
14. Maldonado Williams + 1 lap
15. Alguersuari Toro Rosso + 1 lap
16. Senna Renault + 1 lap
17. Kovalainen Lotus + 1 lap
18. Trulli Lotus + 2 laps
19. Glock Virgin + 2 laps
20. Liuzzi HRT + 2 laps

Drivers Championship
1. Vettel 374pts
2. Button 255
3. Alonso 245
4. Webber 233
5. Hamilton 227
6. Massa 108
7. Rosberg 83
8. Schumacher 76
9. Petrov 36
10. Sutil 34

Constructors’ championship
1. Red Bull-Renault 607
2. McLaren-Mercedes 482
3. Ferrari 353
4. Mercedes 159
5. Renault 72
6. Force India-Mercedes 57
7. Sauber-Ferrari 42
8. Toro Rosso-Ferrari 41
9. Williams-Cosworth 5

Here in the Yas Marina paddock yesterday Hamilton offered a window in to his troubled soul, confirming many of the things commentators have been saying for months about the effect his private life have had on his professional life. He explains some of how he is feeling. He envies team mate Jenson Button’s protective “bubble” of friends and family and faces the prospect of being beaten by a team mate for the first time in a championship season.

After the Indian GP McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh said that he felt part of the reason Hamilton’s head was elsewhere was that he was being beaten by his team mate Jenson Button. That seemed a surprising thing for him to say, not the arm “around the shoulder” approach team bosses normally take when their driver is struggling.

Hamilton dismissed Whitmarsh’s comments as “rubbish” and explained how he is really feeling,

“He made some comments which I disagree with,” said Hamilton. “It’s rubbish. My issues have been much, much bigger than that – more personal. Jenson doing great is great for the team.

“Jenson has done a great job to get things in the right place. He’s got his Dad, who’s there at every single race, he’s got his manager, he’s got his friends and his girlfriend there all the time. He’s got a great bubble around him and with that he’s able to go out there and perform without any worries on his mind.

“Jenson’s in a much stronger position than me so I wouldn’t expect anything less than the results he’s been getting. But that’s not affecting the way I’m performing.”

Every driver is different; some need an emotional life support system around them, others, like Robert Kubica, are more self contained and need just a manager by their side.

Sebastian Vettel is a bit like that; he has his trainer Tommy and his father Norbert is around but very low key in the background.

Most people don’t take their parents or wife to the office, but in a sports context, whatever makes you perform is the right set up. It’s an important thing to get right, because a driver has to focus on getting the maximum from himself throughout a race weekend and he needs his life to be in balance to achieve that.

I remember seeing Jacques Villeneuve having a blazing row with his girlfriend minutes before qualifying for the Argentinian Grand Prix in 1997.

“They (relationships) affect everything you do, the things you say, the way you act, the groove you get into,” admitted Hamilton.

“It’s not an excuse it’s just the way things have gone. I feel quite confident that I know the right direction for next year and how I can get things better – it’s just about doing it. I don’t plan on being single for very long. It’s nothing to do with being single or not being single. When I was in my relationship she was probably the most positive thing that was in my life – and maybe that needs to be back there.

“I’ve just been a bit unfortunate and I’ve got my own problems. I lost that bubble. It is a priority for me to create that atmosphere around myself because it’s a happy bubble.”

“Lewis will be feeling under pressure because of the great performances from Jenson at the moment, ” said Whitmarsh.

“Lewis, the great, exciting driver that he is, will not like being beaten by Jenson. I don’t want him to enjoy being beaten by his team-mate. I want him to try to beat Jenson, just as I want Jenson to try to beat Lewis.”

Seasoned human behaviour watchers within F1 will find these comments interesting. Whitmarsh didn’t need to say them, but there comes a point – and perhaps we are there now with Button 38 points clear of Hamilton with a maximum 50 available – when the question of Button’s effect on Hamilton becomes unavoidable.

Button has beaten Hamilton in four of the last six races where both have finished. Many people, including myself, thought Button was making a mistake when he went to McLaren in the winter of 2009, as Hamilton seemed clearly the faster of the two.

He still is, but this season, it’s not made any difference. Button has done a tremendous job; not always that fast in qualifying, but always able to make the most of the McLaren package in race conditions and his three wins and seven podiums from 13 races he has finished speak of a consistency at a high level.

That Hamilton is having a tough year for all sorts of reasons, mainly personal, is undisputed. But the notion that Button is considered inside McLaren to be beating him – rather than picking up better results because Hamilton has been involved in collisions, which have knocked him back – is interesting. And even more interesting is the idea that this is getting to the younger man.

In qualifying Hamilton leads 12-6 (although in India he then had a three place penalty) and has the team’s only pole of the year.

It was not hard to conclude from this weekend that Hamilton can’t wait for this season to end, just as Vettel and Button don’t want it ever to end. Such is sport.

Button went through a tough couple of years in his mid 20s where things weren’t going right for him and the hassles of life as an F1 driver outweighed the pleasures.

After an adolescence spent dedicated to racing karts, Hamilton is doing his growing up in public. We’ve seen it before many times with young sportsmen.

We’ve all been through the disruptive girlfriend phase, we’ve all made mistakes. He is doing through it in the public gaze and without his father by his side as a steadying influence.

Anthony Hamilton pushed his son very hard in the first years in F1 because that’s the way they’d always worked and it had got them to that point. Wanting to be free of that to take his own path, Lewis went his own way and now has no steadying influence to turn to.

Interestingly, Anthony gave an interview to Indian media outlet First Post Sports at the weekend in which he said,

“Sometimes people like to cause you a little bit of grief but at the end of the day we all have problems in our lives. For example, I have been married twice and I have had some really bad days, when I am working but I had issues on my mind. It is the same with Lewis and any other F1 driver in the paddock.”

Also the superiority of the Red Bull/Vettel package has to be bringing him down. Vettel notched up 27 pole positions and 21 wins at the weekend. In the 27 races between Hamilton’s last pole (Korea) and the previous one (Canada 2010) Vettel had pole 19 times.

How to break that cycle? When was the last time McLaren had a dominant car? What are the chances of them having one next season?

This, as much as any notion of Button “beating” him, must be preying on Hamilton’s mind as he contemplates a long break from anything to do with F1 this winter.

* One final note: my take on the collision yesterday between Hamilton and Massa was that, as Massa said, he braked later than Hamilton on the grippy racing line, which is why you see him surge ahead half a car length just before he turns in. He told us yesterday evening he knew that Hamilton was inside before he braked and his mistake therefore was thinking that by braking later he’d got far enough ahead to turn in.

Compare this to the various battles Alonso and Webber have had lately, including in the opening laps on Sunday. Every time they try to pass they give each other room and that’s what Massa should have done in this incident. To turn in as he did, he knew that a collision was almost certain and that’s why he got a penalty.

Alonso and Webber respect each other and therefore do not collide. You can fill in the gaps for yourself.

This extraordinary happening was the final stage of the Drive of a Lifetime programme, which is organised by one of McLaren’s sponsors, Johnnie Walker.

Thousands of entries from all over the world were narrowed down to 17 finalists, who came to England for a three day experience, which took in some time at McLaren’s HQ in Woking, a day driving fast cars at Jonathan Palmers’s track in Bedford and then a day in single seaters at Silverstone.

I joined in on the single seaters and had a great time, lapping the national circuit on a sunny morning!

McLaren’s senior engineers Phil Prue and Scott Bain were there, along with Mika Hakkinen, who is an ambassador for Johnnie Walker these days, to decide who was most deserving of a chance to achieve the hold grail of all F1 fans – a drive in a real F1 car.

The car in question was Lewis Hamilton’s 2008 McLaren, the chassis being the one in which he won Silverstone that year. Hamilton showed up in the afternoon to shake down the car and show the winner how the controls work. Despite the news breaking that he has split with his girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger, he seemed reasonably upbeat.

The winner was Djordje Simic from Serbia, who did remarkably well when he got behind the wheel of the McLaren on the Silverstone national circuit, using most of the revs and hitting a decent line out of Woodcote. Most importantly, he didn’t spin or crash! I was really surprised at how well he coped, as these cars don’t work unless you get the tyres and the brakes up to temperature.

I’ve done a video on the drive, which I’ll post shortly.

McLaren are now retiring that 2008 car and Hamilton said he was going to ask McLaren boss Ron Dennis if he could have it!

For next season the team is going to use a 2010 McLaren F1 car for demonstrations and for this one-off event with the public. If this Drive of a Lifetime event happens again next Autumn, I’ll try to see if we can get a place in the final 17 for a JA on F1 reader. Now that would be cool.

Keep your eyes peeled for that…

So for example if you think that Jenson Button will finish ahead of Lewis Hamilton by 4 seconds use the comments box below and write “Button by 4 secs”. Or you could predict that one will finish and the other won’t. It’s up to you. Only one entry per person, however and we won’t accept entries once the cars go to the grid.

Button has finished ahead of Hamilton in the last five Grands Prix. But will this be the weekend when Hamilton gets back the supremacy? The McLaren has been pretty competitive lately, as it was in Senna’s day!

The first four registered entries which are correct or nearest to the actual time gap between the pair at the end of Sunday’s race, will win a fantastic package of a Senna movie poster, signed and personalised by the film’s writer Manish Pandey and director Asif Kapadia and a copy of the DVD. Note: The DVDs are UK format.

The Senna DVD has been a smash hit since its launch on Monday and has sold more than 100,000 copies over the counter already. It is also at the top of the charts on both Itunes and Amazon. The figures are way ahead of expectations, to the point where it is up there with the best DVD sales records seen in the UK in recent years, according to the producers.

If you miss out on the prize or if you want to be sure to get a copy of the DVD, you can always buy one from our store at Senna DVD