Kimi Raikkonen is currently enjoying a mental calmness that comes with being Formula One world champion.
Heading into the second half of the year, and embroiled in a three-way struggle for the lead with Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton in his McLaren, in one respect Raikkonen has an edge.
In comparison to his rivals, including BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica who is only two points behind, the Finn has been there, seen it, done it, and effectively wears the crown.
For Raikkonen, there is less stress that comes with having a bad race because he can at least claim to have won one world title.
That far from means he is not hungry for another, but the pressure is arguably not so great on the 28-year-old as it is on Hamilton, Massa and Kubica.
"Whatever happens, if I do not win the title this year then it is probably not going to hurt as much if I had not won it at all," said Raikkonen.
"Last year nobody really expected us to win, yet we still did, so even when we've had bad races this year I've not been too worried.
"That's because you can see how quickly the situation changes this year.
"Right now we are in a pretty good position, so it's up to us. We just have to do our best and hopefully it will be enough."
Although calmer within himself, Raikkonen does not feel he has any psychological advantage over his other rivals because he is unaware of how mentally strong they are or will be.
"I think everybody has a pretty good idea of how they should go about trying to win the title," remarked Raikkonen.
"Some people are stronger in the head in many ways and some not. As for me, I know I am pretty relaxed.
"I don't really think about anything too much. If I have a bad race I'll worry about it for a while, but it's not going to end my life.
"There are far more serious things to worry about than just races."
Which is why Raikkonen is not too concerned either at the fact he has not won any of the last five races.
The British Grand Prix at a wet Silverstone a fortnight ago was a case in point of one of those that got away as his team made a poor tyre choice at the first pit stop and he could only finish fourth.
Yet his philosophy is such that as far as Raikkonen is concerned, it was "not a disaster".
It means that going into the remaining nine races of the campaign, he is in a better position now compared to a year ago.
"I'm pretty happy," assessed Raikkonen, who could only manage the fourth quickest time at the end of the two practice sessions ahead of Sunday's German Grand Prix.
"But in races there are so many things that can happen. Sometimes things don't go exactly like you expect.
"So it's all open, with three guys on the same number of points and the fourth just two behind.
"Anything can happen. Probably it will be very close between all the guys to the end, and then if somebody has a bad race it could cost them a lot.
"For us, we could have had better results this season, but in the end we could be in a far worse position than we are now."
As far as president Luca di Montezemolo is concerned, he at least feels Ferrari should be in a far stronger position at present, and was highly critical of the overall poor performance at Silverstone.
But as Raikkonen noted: "He was not the only one who was upset.
"We wanted a better result, and we had all the options for that, but we made mistakes and it cost us - but that's racing."
Hamilton finished practice with the best time of the day, blitzing Hockenheim with a lap of one minute 15.025 seconds, finishing over 0.6secs quicker than Kovalainen, with Massa third.
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