An emotional and exhausted Lewis Hamilton admitted that it had been hard to focus as he sped to victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix, ending the most controversial weekend of this year’s Formula One world championship.

Despite finding himself at the centre of the biggest on-track row to hit the sport this season, Hamilton displayed his iron will to win at the Hungaroring under continuous pressure from Kimi Raikkonen, of Ferrari, yesterday.

Although the contest was devoid of incident, it took place amid rancour over Saturday’s attempt by McLaren Mercedes to orchestrate their drivers’ qualifying positions, and the British rookie had to put that out of his mind to record his third grand-prix victory.

Starting from the front of the grid after Fernando Alonso, his teammate, had been demoted to sixth place for blocking Hamilton at the McLaren pair’s final qualifying pit-stop, Hamilton, 22, showed a steadiness of nerve from the moment the lights went out to the finish.

Throughout 70 laps, he had Raikkonen’s bright-red Ferrari in his mirrors waiting for a mistake that never came. The two were often less than a second apart and the battle raged right to the flag, where the margin was just 0.7sec as the Finn signed off with the fastest lap of the race.

Hamilton had been heard furiously exchanging four-letter phrases with Ron Dennis, the McLaren team principal, after qualifying on Saturday and yesterday Dennis said that the team were finding the “mistrust” that sometimes existed between the drivers difficult to deal with.

From Hamilton’s perspective, the weekend had been “emotional for all the team”. He added: “It’s good to be back at the top after an eventful race the last time out [the European Grand Prix at the Nürburgring in Germany two weeks ago, when Hamilton finished ninth]. With all the drama, it would have been easy to lose focus.

“It’s been a downer on the team, but they have still done a great job, and I know how to win races. It’s probably one of the hardest I’ve had. I had to push that bit extra with Kimi behind.”

With Nick Heidfeld, of BMW Sauber, finishing third, 43 seconds adrift, and Alonso fourth, the result stretches Hamilton’s lead at the head of the drivers’ championship from two to seven points with six races still to come. The Spaniard, who left the paddock area quickly after the race, insisted that the “fight for the championship is still open”.

“Without the penalty, victory would have been possible today as you can see on my lap times,” he added. The race is far from run.