Hamilton says personal life is key to improved form | F1 Fanatic round-up

In the round-up: Lewis Hamilton says improvements in his personal life has helped his performances this year.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

Hamilton: Reducing 'baggage' helped me (Autosport)

'I've strengthened bridges and relationships with people, not only in my personal life but also in my team. I've been working with the engineers better this year and all of that stuff has just helped.'

Aussie Grit Helmet Promo ' We have a winner! (Mark Webber)

Mark Webber will sport a special helmet designed by a fan at the Singapore Grand Prix.

From Monaco to Hungary (ESPN)

'Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull stopped on the track on the Sunday and they didn't quite manage to get it back to the pits. It got halfway between the first corner and the pits so I was able to get a few shots of it by itself and I was able to go a little bit closer than normal.'

Classic Belgium (Sky)

Pictures from past Belgian Grands Prix.

Drivers get behind the lens for charity auction (F1)

'Leading names from the world of Formula One racing have put their photography skills to the test thanks to Zoom, an innovative new project in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity.'

Olympic ideals (GrandPrix)

'Bernie Ecclestone continues to hold the belief that gold, silver and bronze medals should be presented to the first three at the end of each Grand Prix, the championship being decided by the driver with the greatest number of gold gongs. Apart from devaluing the medal concept by dishing out them out once a fortnight, the title decision process would be subject to distortion to suit personal ends. The 2012 Olympics proved that.'

Tweets

David Coulthard doing 190mph through the Lincoln Tunnel. #americanvacation2 twitter.com/redbullf1spy/s'

' Red Bull Racing Spy (@redbullf1spy) August 15, 2012

Comment of the day

Alex Brown (@Splittimes) on Elio de Angelis's victory for Lotus in the 1982 Austraian Grand Prix which featured in yesterday's On This Day:

Just read about that 1982 win for Lotus in the Jabby Crombac biography of Colin Chapman.

Apparently it made a huge difference to his spirits after the torrid time they had trying to prove the legality of the twin chassis car, on-going losses for Lotus Cars, protracted financial problems from a £5m loan from American Express. The FOCA/FISA war had taken its toll too, with Chapman nearly ousting Ecclestone as leader of FOCA (after a meeting with Jean-Marie Balestre at the Le Mans 24hrs), but later deciding he'd rather concentrate on his own work. He was also closing up his boat businesses (after pioneering new vacuum-moulding techniques) and beginning to look at building microlights.

Of course, at this time he was developing his next technical advancement: active suspension. What a busy little pioneer.
Alex Brown (@Splittimes)

From the forum

• Red Bull play The Star-Spangled Banner on their car's engine in America
• An extraordinary video of a kart racer taking a rival off, then throwing punches at him
• Great videos of Super TC2000 at Rafaela's Oval from @Fer-no65

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Feline-Fan!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

Nigel Mansell kept his championship hopes alive with victory in the Austrian Grand Prix 25 years ago today.

But team mate Nelson Piquet limited the damage by taking second, albeit the best part of a minute behind the other Williams after making a pit stop.

It took three attempts to get the race started after a series of crashes. Here's the first of them:

Image © McLaren/Hoch Zwei