Red-hot Lewis puts Ferrari in the shade in practice for the Monaco Grand Prix

While the sport's ruler, Max Mosley, made only a fleeting public appearance, the British racer thrived on a three-hour exhibition of such consummate skill that he is now favourite for Sunday's glamour race.

Full stretch: Sunbathers relax as Hamilton speeds past during practice in Monte Carlo

Trailing Kimi Raikkonen by seven points, Hamilton knows how desperately he needs to put the brakes on Ferrari's red rockets. They were third and fourth fastest, with the Williams of Nico Rosberg second on his home tarmac, nearly four-tenths of a second off Hamilton's mark.

So does the 23-year- old McLaren man believe he can become only the fifth Briton to win Formula One's ultimate driving test? "Yep, definitely," he said. "Every circuit we go to, the driver can make a difference, but here it can make a much bigger difference as it is so narrow, so tight.

"It's about the driver with the biggest balls who can get closest to the barriers. I was pushing it, enjoying the track and finding it easy to get to the limit. We made changes and we went in the right direction at the end, but we can make the car even better."

Ferrari admitted they feared that this would prove a difficult weekend. But the forecast of rain for Saturday and possibly Sunday must lend a slender hope of pulling off a surprise win.

More intrigue rests on the outcome of the FIA General Assembly meeting on June 3, when Mosley's position will be under review in light of newspaper revelations over an afternoon with five prostitutes.

On Thursday, Mosley's movements were skilfully choreographed. After taking breakfast in the FIA motorhome on the edge of the paddock, he walked over the bridge and along the pit lane to the control tower above the swimming pool.

Cameras tracked him just long enough to prove he was around and afraid of nobody, but not so long as to aggravate the Monaco royal family, who have no intention of acknowledging his presence.

"Business as usual," was the claim from Mosley's official spokesman, citing Mosley's busy itinerary. He met various team bosses, although you would normally expect him to spend longer in the paddock. There would usually be interviews with TV crews and print journalists as he switched seamlessly from one European language to the next depending on his audience.

On Thursday, he declined every overture. Not a jot of the proceedings was left to chance. Even the cast of the FIA press conference was adroitly managed, with the team bigwigs on show hand-picked for their loyalty to their embattled leader.

Most notable was Toro Rosso's Gerhard Berger, a close friend of Mosley, who made an impassioned defence, saying: "It is a private thing. It is nothing against the law and I have to say I am surprised that everyone in Formula One is suddenly so clean and nice.

"To connect this to the job of Max Mosley as FIA president is not right. Few people, if any, have made such an impact on the safety factor for motor sport. If you think back to what happened after 1994 at Imola (when Ayrton Senna was killed), it took a strong guy to change things regarding race tracks and crash tests. To see the crash with Robert Kubica last year (in Canada), he would not have survived that before.

"It should be decided by the automobile clubs at the FIA; not by newspapers or us. The sport needs a strong leader. We have that at the moment and hopefully will do in the future."

Even Bernie Ecclestone, the sport's powerbroker, declined to step up his battle with his erstwhile ally. "Are you surprised by Mosley's arrival?" he was asked. "Max lives here," he said, straight faced, to a nonplussed German interrogator. For Mosley - and Hamilton - it was not such a bad day.