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Last year's Hungarian Grand Prix proved arguably the season's most exciting when, in a wet race, a wheel nut fell off championship leader Fernando Alonso's Renault and, starting from 14th on the grid, Jenson Button came through the field to take his first and, as yet, only Formula One victory.

As he now battles to make Honda's current offering work, the twelve-month gap must seem an awfully long one for Button - all the more so given the fact that Lewis Hamilton has superceded him as this country's F1 darling.

Nevertheless, an interesting little aside came at the start of the European Grand Prix a fortnight ago when, in the monsoon conditions which swept across the Nurburgring following the race's start, Button again proceeded to fly through the pack quicker than just about anyone else.

Alas, the charge did not - could not - last, with Button soon falling victim to the lake that promptly appeared at the circuit's turn one. Hamilton promptly followed him into the gravel but, unlike his put-upon compatriot, the squeaky-clean rookie managed to keep his engine running and managed to rejoin the race. When it doesn't rain it pours, eh Jenson...

Hamilton: Back down to earth

Not that Hamilton's weekend in the Eifel mountains was ultimately anything to write home about. Eventful it certainly was, however, given that, for starters, a wheel-nut failure pitched him into a nasty-looking crash during qualifying. Having escaped that incident pretty much unscathed, his race then yielded an opening-lap puncture and the excursion already mentioned, before a mix up between McLaren and race control over his track position (when the weather forced the race to be stopped) and a bad tyre choice thwarted him yet further.

But, when compared to the stellar series of finishes that have electrified the sport since Hamilton's arrival back in the spring, the combination of a big fat nul points and a severe winding have, it seems, literally brought him back down to earth with a bump. The reality of F1 life has finally dawned, and it will be interesting to see how he reacts to the championship setback at the Hungaroring - a circuit on which, incidentally, he struggled during his championship-winning GP2 season last year.

Alonso: Upping his game

At least Hamilton can head to Budapest with his championship lead still intact but, at just two points, it looks rather more pregnable than did the 14-point gap that existed prior to the British GP. It seems that, for all the talk of Alonso being rattled by the Englishman's precocious presence at McLaren, the double world champion has responded the way double world champions tend to - by digging deeper and upping his game.

Proof if proof be needed that Alonso is not one to shirk a fight came a fortnight ago with a smash-and-grab victory which not only did wonders for a third successive title bid, but also must have been an obvious statement of intent for his rivals - and not just Felipe Massa, the man on the receiving end of Alonso's late-race hustling.

Eighteen points have now been scored by Alonso in two races, but was it not the case that he was also scoring, and winning, when things were supposedly going wrong earlier in the season? True, but it is the more authoritative manner in which he has performed of late which has suggested that, having finally managed to get to grips with Bridgestone's control tyres, fortune is turning in his favour.

Kimi Raikkonen must have thought the same a fortnight ago: having scored back-to-back wins in France and Great Britain, the Finn went to the Nurburgring seeking a hat-trick that was eventually scuppered by a Ferrari hydraulics failure. It was the second mechanical retirement he has suffered this season and, in this era of peerless reliability in F1, championships can hinge on such drawbacks.

Much as they can also hinge on results such as that achieved by Alonso last time out. The chief loser was, of course, Massa and, much as the style in which the result was achieved suggested that Alonso will be there or thereabouts this year (assuming McLaren escape heavy punishment when the ongoing 'spying' row heads to the FIA Court of Appeal) the opposite can also perhaps be applied to the Brazilian's own challenge. Massa currently lies third in the drivers' championship, nine points behind Alonso and seven points ahead of Raikkonen, and yet one cannot help but think it will be the latter who, when it comes to the crunch, will be leading Ferrari's chase.

Raikkonen crashed early on during last year's Hungarian Grand Prix, after colliding with the Toro Rosso of Vitantonio Liuzzi. The latter was one of those last seen pirouhetting off the Nurburgring a fortnight ago, almost in tandem with team-mate Scott Speed. Indeed, that turn of events finally ended the latter's always rather fractious relationship with the Italian team. Another Red Bull-backed driver, Sebastian Vettel, will drop his BMW Sauber testing activities for a full-time race seat from Hungary onwards.

Spyker have also made a driver change, with Markus Winkelhock's performance at the Nurburgring - the debutant actually led early on, after the team gamely elected to start him from the pitlane on wet tyres just as the rain arrived - now likely to remain a rather surreal one-off. Instead, Sakon Yamamoto, who raced for Super Aguri for part of last season, will partner Adrian Sutil.