By Paul Dixon (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-04-17 10:35

If Lewis Hamilton's 2008 season hitherto was an F1 track the first corner would run downhill: Victory in Australia, a mediocre performance in Sepang, followed by disaster in Bahrain.

Hamilton is spending his three-week sojourn at his Swiss chalet seeing red - and that's not the Edam on his kitchen table.

His performance last weekend in the desert was not up to the standard we have come to expect from the 2007 racing prodigy. In what little sound-bites he shared before scurrying off to his Bahrain hotel, Hamilton's self-analysis was to the point: "a disaster".

And his critics were quick to lambaste him. Niki Lauda -- never Hamilton's number one aficionado -- said: "I thought he would become better this year but he has become worse. He is in pretty bad shape.

"The crash with Alonso, and in practice on Friday, was absolutely needless. He showed nothing in this race. I think that is because of the pressure he is putting himself under."

The key point is pressure. And over the last few races some of Hamilton's pressure points have been exposed.

Through his successes in 2007 Hamilton ostensibly appeared to be the complete package; technically gifted with composure on and off the track he went from incomplete rookie to title challenger by the same juncture in the current season.

But Hamilton is barely 23 years old. Even with bundles of talent, his inexperience in handling pressure is a flat-spot. And Hamilton's performance in Bahrain last weekend highlights that there is still some way for him to go.

Take Michael Schumacher's record. Even in the years when he wasn't winning world championships, he had an imperious ability to finish in the points when his car -- or bad luck -- got in his way.

Lewis Hamilton failed to show this ability under similar circumstances in Bahrain. And these are different times to when championship points were only awarded for top-six finishes.

The young British star's crash into the tyre wall in the Bahrain practice session - an overnight repair job for his mechanics - meant he was always making up lost tenths.

To give him some credit, Hamilton qualified P3 in the spare chassis with the real possibility of a podium finish 57 laps later.

But Hamilton hit his McLaren steering wheel's snooze button come race day.

His mistake at the start saw the pack race by, eventually slipping down to 12th; spinned by McLaren F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh as "a procedural error", due to an incorrect setting, Lewis was later to admit that it was his fault.

It was now up to Lewis Hamilton to show the world that he is made of the same mettle as the F1 greats such as Michael Schumacher.

But Hamilton's nightmare weekend continued to stall. Soon after the race start, Hamilton crashed into the back of Fernando Alonso whilst battling his way through the midfield.

The race was more of a minefield for Lewis Hamilton. Not only did he finish outside the top ten for the first time in his short career, he failed to demonstrate that he was up for the fight.

It leaves him with an up-hill battle to get his season back on track. A nine-point lead over world champion Kimi Raikkonen has been reduced into a five-point deficit.

Legendary F1 commentator Murray Walker once said, "Anything can happen in F1, and it usually does". In a few weeks time, Hamilton might be leading the championship by five points and the swagger will be back. Because Murray is right, anything can happen in F1, and it happens very quickly.

But Lewis Hamilton is now finding out exactly what F1's most popular elder statesman meant when he shared with us those words of wisdom.

He must now positively respond to adversity by making the best of his machinery in any given race -- a trait inherent in all the F1 greats.