McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton was delighted to pick up a victory, after holding off the challenge of Lotus comfortably to put himself back in title contention at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday.
The last race, before the summer break, saw Hamilton gain the biggest advantage in the title race, with fellow contenders Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber finishing fifth, fourth and eighth respectively.
Kimi Raikkonen, who showed he hasn't lost any of his driving skills in a formula one car, finished an impressive second from team-mate Romain Grosjean.
In the driver's championship, Ferrari's Alonso maintains his lead with 164 points, while Red Bull's Mark Webber has 124. Team-mate Vettel is two points behind on 122 followed by Hamilton (117) and Raikkonen (116).
"I am so proud of the team," an elated Hamilton, who had a special helmet cheering Great Britain and Grenada, said. "In fact it was one of the toughest races that I can remember. And to be honest, I loved every single second of it - to be so much under pressure, never knowing how long your tyres will last - and I really made them last.
"I knew that I was quick, but in the end it was all about managing the gap. I had to make sure that I had a big enough gap in the last corner. And I did. Kimi caught up in the middle sector, but the last corner was what really made it.
"To win on the weekend when the Olympics started I had the feeling that I made my contribution as well."
Hamilton said he would be looking for more of the same in the second half of the season, if McLaren are to close the gap on Ferrari and Alonso. "We know that we have made a huge leap forward and we still have to work hard in the second half of the season to keep staying ahead of these guys as we did today.
"Lotus was phenomenally quick today and keeping them behind was a pretty hard job -- and we've managed it."
"These are the kind of grands prix, the races you win like this, where you're under intense pressure from great drivers like Romain and Kimi, for me it's a great reminder of the old days with Kimi, and this is the kind of day when you have to have your mind 100 percent and I feel great because the team didn't flinch and neither did I."
Raikkonen said he was disappointed with a second-place finish, as Lotus looked like they had the best car on the track. "I had an okay start but then we had an issue with the KERS and I only could use 50 per cent and I lost one position to Fernando, so the first few laps were not really good because we were trying to get the KERS working," the former world champion said.
"After that it was okay but the same situation with Alonso, I was stuck behind him and just tried to save my tyres and push once we got the clear circuit. It seemed to work both times and we gained a lot of time on those few laps."
Raikkonen almost clashed with his team-mate Grosjean when the former came out of the pit-lane, but the Iceman showed his experience, keeping his younger team-mate at bay to move into second place, a position he would not relinquish.
"The team told me it's going to be very close and I made a mistake with the pit lane speed limiter so it meant maybe five metres after the line I was still on it, so I thought that I really didn't do a very good job out of there -- but luckily there was enough gap and we were side-by-side in the first corner, but I could keep my position quite easily at that point.
"But it was one of those things -- we had a lot of speed but just couldn't use it in all the race."
