article: The Mercedes driver was fairly monosyllabic in his television interviews. A pep talk from team boss Toto Wolff followed, the Austrian telling him he should see his fourth place as "12 points won rather than lost". But, while he was more open and expansive with the written media shortly afterwards, the general negative tone continued. And then, at the end, a moment of realisation, presumably of the headlines that might follow, and a plea for understanding. "Adversity is when there is an opportunity to grow and do something really special," Hamilton said. "I am really happy with the way I have been driving considering [the results]. "It is important for people who are watching and also people who are reporting that you have patience with us as drivers. You can't be happy every day you have a result. "Whether it is second, fifth, 10th, whatever it is, you are going to be annoyed at one point, because you put so much into it. "You train. You sacrifice everything to make sure you get the best result possible. So when you don't - if you don't personally deliver and other things stack up against you - it is hard to come out smiling. Because that means you don't care enough. And the fact is I care more than anything. "So there are days when it feels more painful than others. There are days when it is easier to handle and think: 'I will move forwards.' So when you make comments, or are writing stories, bear that in mind. It is not a sign of being ungrateful or anything. "This is an intense battle which I am loving, and we are enjoying as a team, but I want to win this championship. "Right now I am 20 points behind. I don't have a crystal ball but it doesn't look great at the moment. But there is still a long way to go. Within one race it could switch. But the bigger the gap gets the more pressure builds." This is one of the aspects of Hamilton that makes him so compelling a personality to follow. He can be contradictory, puzzling and infuriating. But also intelligent, eloquent and fascinating. And he just can't hide himself, even if sometimes he might be trying to. It was there throughout the weekend in Austria. There was the Thursday news conference in which he undercut Vettel's attempt to draw a line under his road-rage moment in Baku at the previous race by revealing that the German had not apologised when they spoke the day after the race, only by text a day after that. And said he still wasn't completely sure the German had made it clear he did not think Hamilton had 'brake-tested' him (although Vettel did). There were the monosyllabic interviews after he qualified third rather than fastest, which meant he would start eighth rather than sixth, and in which he tried to bat off his disappointment before, finally, admitting: "I didn't deliver. I have been quick all weekend and in Q3 I didn't do the time
summary: Lewis Hamilton was pretty down after the Austrian Grand Prix, which was understandable seeing as he had just seen his championship deficit to Sebastian Vettel stretch to 20 points.