Lewis Hamilton's record-breaking Portuguese GP drive was the perfect example of a sometimes hidden brilliance

For a man who now has 92 Grand Prix victories and is on the verge of winning a record-equalling seventh world drivers’ title, Lewis Hamilton’s brilliance on-track is often hard to appreciate.

He has spent his best years with a Mercedes team that have steamrollered the opposition since the start of the V6 turbo-hybrid era in 2014. The team will soon complete a record-breaking seventh double championship in a row. Hamilton is weeks away from taking his fourth consecutive title and sixth in seven years for the team. Given that Mercedes have won nearly three-quarters (98 of 132) of all races since 2014, the impression of theirs and Hamilton’s greatness has perhaps dulled as it has become so routine.

His record-breaking drive at the Portuguese Grand Prix, however, was a stunning, prominent and slightly rare example of his supremacy. In finishing 25 seconds ahead of team-mate Valtteri Bottas, you can do nothing but marvel.

You often get the feeling that Hamilton is driving within himself, doing enough to win, keeping his powder dry for when he really needs it in any given race. Even when he's up against it. If that was the case in the opening stages of the race in the Algarve this weekend, the keg eventually exploded with Hamilton’s talent.

After an unpredictable opening few laps, when Carlos Sainz’s McLaren stormed into an unexpected lead, the race settled into a familiar pattern with Bottas leading Hamilton after the six-time champion struggled on the opening lap. Bottas managed to keep his team-mate at arm’s length — a couple of seconds or so — for a handful of laps.

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His lead then starting to evaporate, with Hamilton taking small but significant chunks from it each lap. Once Hamilton closed to within a couple of seconds it felt inevitable that he would breeze into first place — and so he did. You wonder how crushing it must have been for Bottas to, again, have the upper hand only for it to disappear in no time at all.

If losing the lead was crushing, what happened in the remaining laps must have been devastating. From Hamilton taking the lead on lap 20, he put in fastest lap after fastest lap to lead by 4.9 seconds after 27 laps and 8.7 on lap 35. By the chequered flag on lap 66 Hamilton had pulled out a 25-second lead, nearly a whole pit-stop’s advantage. It was an obliteration and a drive worthy of any champion in any era, and demonstrated his phenomenal feel in the car as well as his pace and timing. Fittingly, it all kicked off with a characteristic whinge about his tyres.

If you want to know and appreciate the difference between a good and a great driver look no further than the two Mercedes drivers this weekend. Bottas was fastest in all three free practice sessions and looked to have the better of Hamilton until the very last moment in qualifying, when the Briton sneaked it. He competed at Hamilton’s level until lap 20 of the race before any semblance of competition seemed to dissolve.  A familiar tale, but it is the story of their partnership writ large. It was only two races ago that Bottas took advantage of Hamilton's misfortune to win in Russia and, strangely, said it answered his critics. That resistance was short lived.

The weekend characterised Hamilton perfectly and it also did the same to a downtrodden and thoroughly defeated Bottas. The Finn’s plight at Mercedes is a bind. He was chosen as Hamilton’s team-mate because he’s quick but has not been quick enough often enough to cause the Briton any meaningful or prolonged concern. So, he sits patiently and compliantly in the best car in the field, as part of the most successful team in the history of F1 but with perhaps the sport’s greatest ever driver for company.

Bottas will start his fifth season for Mercedes next year but what can he really hope to get from it? As you would expect, every year he lines up with renewed expectations and talk of finally being able to challenge Hamilton. Every year he comes up short by varying degrees. Even ignoring his failure to post a threat to Hamilton's championship hopes, he has won nine races to Hamilton's 39 since 2017.

His qualities as a team player are well noted, as Hamilton’s slightly bizarre and telling comments that he was “proud” of his team-mate after Bottas fought back and challenged him on the first lap of the Eifel Grand Prix showed.

But he has still never pushed Hamilton like Rosberg did in a tempestuous three years together at Mercedes. His performances in qualifying have been admirable: to beat Hamilton as often as he does — around 30 per cent of the time roughly — and to get within a tenth of a second or so of him so frequently — five times this year — is impressive. His race performances? Significantly less so.

In fairness, if you switch around the Mercedes drivers’ luck in 2020, he would still be in with a shout. But what happened in Portugal on Sunday can only be described as an annihilation.  It is characteristic of the myriad of talents that make up the overall ability of a race driver. He is clearly very, very good but several levels below his team-mate.

As for Hamilton? There are many to choose from, but this was one of his finest drives and a fitting way for him to take a record-breaking victory. A century of wins now beckons. Just as Schumacher put 40 wins between himself and Alain Prost before his initial retirement, it would not be a surprise to see Hamilton do similar to Schumacher.