Today is a good day in the life of Lewis Hamilton. He is back in the car at Hockenheim to test ahead of next week's German Grand Prix. On Sunday, in the British Grand Prix, he gave another demonstration of his extraordinary flair in a racing car, much like he did in Monaco in May and Melbourne in March.

Other days have not gone so well. If the pattern of the season is to be repeated, we are perhaps only a race away from a return to an enforced diet of rotten fruit. A mistake on the circuit, or an indiscretion off it. has been sufficient to place Hamilton back in the media stocks.

That is the territory he is in. Feats of the superhero variety attract cartoon coverage. The wins are invariably otherworldly, the failures seismic; from the sublime to the ridiculous, he rockets at preternatural pace. It is fair to call this phenomenon the 'Hamilton effect'.

The question for Hamilton and his team, as they move forward into the second half of the season with the most slender of championship advantages to protect, is how to manage the 'Hamilton effect'. A failure to make the right choices now could be damaging in November when the prizes are handed out.

After Monaco, where he was again imperious in the wet, and a brilliant pole in Canada, few would have predicted the vortex into which he would tumble. The mistakes were neither here nor there. It would have been better not to have run into the rear of Kimi Raikkonen in Montreal, and to have kept within the rules while overtaking Sebastien Vettel in France.

Poop happens. But Hamilton's responses and the management of them invited trouble. How could it be that a young man as gifted and as humble as he could lead my next door neighbour to the view after the French Grand Prix that he was becoming arrogant? The answer is, of course, that his opinion of Hamilton is shaped by the media.

My neighbour is just the sort of casual observer that Hamilton reaches out to, one who does not invest emotionally in grand prix racing but who pays attention because of the 'Hamilton effect'. McLaren recognised the need for change during the political meltdown last year, which led to the departure of Fernando Alonso.

The communications department was restructured and new appointments were made. Fine as far as it went, but that did not protect Hamilton from the downturn in post-Monaco headlines. Hamilton's father, Anthony, has done all he can to steer his son to this point. But as Hamilton Inc becomes bigger than the team, he needs support to keep the Hamilton express on the rails.

Anthony Hamilton cannot help being a father. Neither should he. He is the right man to guide his son's career. But at times of high stress, a father's role is one thing, the manager's quite often another. You can't always be both and do the racer justice.