Lewis Hamilton is hoping his victory in Abu Dhabi is just the start of his return to the top of Formula One.

The McLaren driver has had, in his own words, his “worst” season ever in F1 this year, winning just two races ahead of Sunday’s grand prix at the Yas Marina circuit.

Spending more time in the stewards’ offices than he had done on the podium, Hamilton was in desperate need of a strong finish to the Championship.

And it was handed to him on a plate on Sunday when pole-sitter and proverbial race winner Sebastian Vettel retired on the first lap, gifting the lead to Hamilton.

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McLaren’s Jenson Button emerged the fairy tale victor in his 200th Grand Prix, after a gripping Hungarian race had seen Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton take turns leading early on before the 2009 champion pushed irresistibly to the fore.

Vettel led the first four laps on a track made super-slippery by drizzle, but had no answer to the forceful Hamilton who pushed ahead on the fifth as the German ran wide in Turn Two. Button jumped Vettel when they switched to slicks on Laps 11 and 12. For the next 29 laps Hamilton seemed a shoe-in for the victory with Button riding shotgun and keeping Vettel under control.

But when Hamilton pitted on Lap 40 he took another set of super-soft tyres, whereas Button, and the Red Bull drivers (Mark Webber on Lap 39, Vettel on 41), went for the more durable softs and a better chance of making it to the finish without another stop.

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McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton hit back emphatically at his critics with a beautifully judged drive to victory at a mostly dry Nurburgring on Sunday afternoon, in a race which he described to his crew as ‘easy’ during his slowing down lap.

Hamilton grabbed the lead from Red Bull’s Mark Webber at the start as Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel scrapped over third place on a track that was slightly slippery in places from a very light shower just as the grid formed.

Vettel took third when Alonso made a mistake, but the Spaniard later repassed him and Vettel lost time first with a half spin in Turn 10 on the ninth lap, then with a rear brake problem.

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Fernando Alonso was always the dangerman for Red Bull after qualifying so close to them, and on Sunday afternoon he put Ferrari back in Victory Lane with a beautifully-judged performance that owed a little to a delay during Sebastian Vettel’s second pit stop.

Vettel appeared to settle for second place once it became clear that he could not catch the red car, having lost crucial time in the pits when there was a problem with a rear wheel. He was 16.5s adrift of the Spaniard by the flag, but had team mate Mark Webber on his tail and threatening to pass until team boss Christian Horner instructed them to “maintain the gap,” as they struggled with their tyres in the closing laps.

Behind them, Ferrari’s Felipe Massa and McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton had a real dust-up for fourth place. The Englishman had driven beautifully from 10th on the grid, making up places hand over fist in the early stages when lunchtime rain obliged everyone to opt for Pirelli’s intermediate rain tyres. The rash of stops to change them began on Lap Nine, and meant that nobody thereafter had to use the hard slicks but could run as many softs as they had available.

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Defending Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel was probably smiling all the way to the finish line under his £3000 crash helmet while the rest of the pack struggled to cope with the Red Bull’s blistering pase.

Fernando Alonso was the only other man out there that could come close to the two Red Bulls finishing in second position 10.8 seconds adrift of Vettel, however it has to be said that if it was not for Mark Webber’s gearbox problem towards the end of the race it would surely have been a one two finish for the Red Bull team.

The Alonso/Webber fight for second position was the main focal interest of the race as Vettel just cleared away into the distance. The two drivers swapped positions four times during the race and it seemed like we were going to be in for a fight till the end, but unfortunately Webber’s car developed a gearbox problem causing the Aussie to shortsift the rest of the way to the finish line.

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Jenson Button made sensational amends to McLaren, having inadvertently taken team mate Lewis Hamilton out of a chaotic Canadian Grand Prix on the eighth lap on Sunday, by snatching victory from Sebastian Vettel halfway round the final lap.

The disjointed race began behind the safety car due to heavy rain, started to dry, then got much worse as the rain returned and refused to abate.

Things went bad for McLaren by the second corner as Hamilton tapped Mark Webber into a spin and attracted the attention of the stewards yet again. But that was nothing compared to the bad news that lay ahead for McLaren…

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Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel rode his luck for all it was worth in Monaco this weekend. He got the pole, then had it inadvertently safeguarded after Sergio Perez’s accident.

 Then on Sunday, just as he was under massive pressure on worn tyres from Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and McLaren’s Jenson Button, a nail-biting race was brought to a temporary halt when Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari crashed into the back of Lewis Hamilton in the Swimming Pool section, taking out Renault’s Vitaly Petrov in the process.

Alonso finished second for the first time in 2011, with Button third and Red Bull’s Mark Webber fourth.

 Lewis Hamilton became embroiled in a row over critical comments about stewards after finishing sixth.

The Englishman was called before officials for two separate incidents and, asked why he had been to see stewards five times in six races this year, he said, apparently in jest: “Maybe it’s because I’m black. That’s what Ali G says.”

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