LEWIS Hamilton was predictably downbeat after his nightmare 2009 season continued with a morale-sapping result in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

Just 11 months on from having the F1 world in the palm of his hand with a mesmeric drive to victory in last year’s rain-lashed race, the reigning champion came down to earth with a resounding bump.

He ducked and weaved his ill-handling McLaren to a humbling 16th place, a lap behind race winner Sebastian Vettel.

Poor results may have become the norm for Hamilton this season after his team lost their way with the design of their 2009 challenger over the winter, but saving arguably his worst display of the season for his home event will have been particularly tough to take.

Not that Hamilton did not try. Indeed, he was predictably at the heart of some of the best racing action of the afternoon as he diced with twotime world champion and former McLaren rival Fernando Alonso for large portions of the 60-lap race.

That two world champions were fighting over the scraps in the lower half of the grid underlined the remarkable revolution F1 has experienced this year.

While debate over the future of the sport may be raging off the track, on it there has been much to appreciate, not least the emergence of new front-runners, typified by race-winner Vettel, who led home an imperious one-two for Red Bull Racing to increase the pressure on championship leader Jenson Button, who came home in sixth.

Talk of a title battle was the furthest thing from Hamilton’s mind, however, and he gave a gloomy assessment of his Silverstone weekend when quizzed after the race.

‘‘It doesn’t feel great,’’ he admitted.

‘‘I had to push and push and push and push, but when there’s no more you can get from the car, it’s inevitable that you are going to finish in that low position.

‘‘You are starting the race knowing how it is, so you just try to have some fun. It wasn’t a great day, but what can I do?

I pushed as hard as I could, I did absolutely everything.’’ After lining up 18th on the grid after a disastrous qualifying session, Hamilton did what he could off the line to make up ground on his rivals, ending the opening lap in 15th place.

A dice with BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica – another man down on his luck after the highs of 2008 – ended with Hamilton taking to the grass on the entry to the Hangar Straight, while the Briton found himself in the thick of the action again after the first round of pit stops, battling with Nick Heidfeld into Maggotts before putting a great move on Alonso’s Renault going into Copse, only to lose the place further round the lap.

Another spin after putting a wheel on the grass on the entry to Vale summed up Hamilton’s erratic afternoon, although the 120,000-strong Silverstone crowd went away in no doubt that the McLaren driver had been performing at the limit.

Hamilton added that he does not expect to see an improvement in his car before the next round at the Nurburgring on July 12, saying: ‘‘I have to remain optimistic, but I don’t think so.’’ Jenson Button is optimistic his disappointing sixth place will be remembered as the only blot on the landscape in what has been an otherwise faultless 2009 campaign.

Button came to his home race eyeing a seventh win and fifth in succession, but saw his hopes dashed from the outset as his Brawn GP car struggled all weekend to get grip into his tyres in the low temperatures.

Button’s woes were reflected in a below-par sixth place on the starting grid, from where the 29-year-old never looked likely to be a factor in the race.

More ominously, Vettel’s win saw him take seven points out of the Briton’s lead as the season moves towards its halfway mark.

He now trails Button by 25 points, but critically his car appears to have the edge on the Brawn after the Milton Keynes-based team rolled out a raft of revisions to the RB5 for this weekend’s race.

With just one point settling the drivers’ title in each of the last two seasons, Button is aware he must collect points even on the bad days, and he was relieved to limit the damage done to his title chances yesterday.