Silverstone win vital to Hamilton’s challenge – Mansell

Lewis Hamilton must dominate the British Grand Prix or risk an uphill battle to stop rival Sebastian Vettel from winning the Formula One championship, Nigel Mansell has claimed.

Hamilton, 32, will head to his home race at Silverstone – which he has won for the last three years – looking to reduce Vettel’s 20-point margin at the summit of the title race.

The triple world champion finished only fourth at last Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix to lose further ground to Vettel after the German crossed the line behind race winner, and Hamilton’s Mercedes team-mate, Valtteri Bottas.

Mansell, the 1992 world champion and four-time winner of the British Grand Prix, believes Hamilton needs to turn in a crushing display this weekend in order to get his stuttering championship challenge back on track.

“It is very important for Lewis that he does a cracking job at the British Grand Prix,” Mansell told Press Association Sport. “The pivotal turning point in the world championship will be this weekend. Lewis has got home advantage, and if he does not dominate this weekend then he will have an uphill battle for the rest of the year.

“His team-mate has won two races and out-qualified him on a number of occasions. The longer he does not get the job done, the more the pressure will build. Lewis needs the momentum to bounce back.

“Vettel only has to not finish one race and Lewis will be there if he keeps doing the job, but it is pivotal that he gets it done this weekend.”

Hamilton’s relationship with Vettel turned sour at last month’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix after the latter deliberately banged wheels with his title rival.

Hamilton was disappointed that Vettel was handed only a 10-second stop-and-go penalty before the Ferrari driver escaped further action despite being hauled in front of the sport’s governing body, the FIA, at an ensuing meeting in Paris.

The pair share seven championships between them, and their on-track battle could prove to be one of the fiercest rivalries in the sport’s history.

Mansell, however, believes this year’s title protagonists have some way to go before they match the intensity of Ayrton Senna’s toxic rivalry with Alain Prost, and indeed Mansell with his former Williams team-mate Nelson Piquet.

Brazilian Piquet notoriously called Mansell “an uneducated blockhead with a stupid and ugly wife” in an interview published in Playboy magazine.

“In comparison, and not to be rude, I would say that Hamilton’s rivalry with Vettel is rather tame,” Mansell, 63, added.

“What Ayrton and Alain, Nelson and myself, and a few others got up to a few years ago, goodness me, there would have been stewards’ enquiry after stewards’ enquiry.”