The liveliest debate ahead of this F1 campaign is whether Hamilton’s car, the
sleek Mercedes W04, can help translate this optimism into results.
Impressive winter testing times promise much, although he is mischievous
about reining in the expectations. “We could just have been running lighter
fuel than everyone else,” he says, teasing.
Niki Lauda, Mercedes’s non-executive chairman, has argued passionately that
Hamilton – a McLaren product since the age of 13 – could enrich his
reputation by delivering success at a different team. The prospect of
emulating Lauda, winner two titles with Ferrari and another at McLaren, and
even Michael Schumacher, who followed a double triumph at Benetton with five
more for the Scuderia, is tantalising for him.
Hamilton is preoccupied deeply with the concept of greatness, talking
earnestly of acquiring a Senna-like aura. He purports to demonstrate more
maturity, claiming that he is content to wait for his elevation to such
exalted company. “Inexperience led me to be impatient in the past But I am
more patient now and I guess that comes with age.”
Hamilton is almost universally identified in the paddock as the fastest driver
in F1, brooking no compromise with his brand of aggression. Lauda describes
him as “unbelievably quick”. But the style has led to all manner of scrapes,
including driving into the back of former McLaren team-mate Jenson Button in
Canada in 2011 and tangling frequently with Ferrari’s Felipe Massa.
Hamilton maintains that he has mellowed, that he will take the long view at
Mercedes this season even if early races do not unfold as he would like. But
he remains too temperamental a character to be taken fully at his word. To
be in Melbourne this week is to be reminded of his infamous lapse here three
years ago, when he was charged by police after being caught doing smoky
burnouts and ‘fishtailing’ in a road car.
The wild side is the path most often travelled by Hamilton, who has just
invested £20 million in a private plane to ferry him about and painted it
lurid red. Indeed, it is the most glaring contradiction in his character
that he cleaves to his council-house background in Stevenage and yet flies
on a private jet in bright scarlet. He argues that his favourite meal is
some spicy chicken at Nando’s but is equally happy indulging the Hollywood
lifestyle with Nicole Scherzinger, the former Pussycat doll, in Los Angeles.
Most controversially, he insists that he pays a “lot of tax”, despite
residing since 2007 in Switzerland and Monaco.
The counterbalance to such excesses is religion. A committed Catholic,
Hamilton has described God being on his side behind the wheel and offered to
say a prayer for Adrian Sutil, the estranged friend for whose assault trial
he failed to turn up last year. But in Barcelona this month he became
visibly irritated when asked to elaborate further on his faith.
The support of Scherzinger, his girlfriend of six years save for a brief split
in 2011, has served as a calming influence, offsetting the family tensions
that caused him to jettison father Anthony as his manager. Ensconced in the
Mercedes cockpit here in Australian sunshine, he finds his sense of purpose
restored. From his words as much as his lap times it is apparent that
Hamilton does, indeed, mean business.