Not that they mind his eccentricities, as executive director Toto Wolff showed
by high-fiving his lavishly gifted charge after he qualified fourth for the
Malaysian Grand Prix.
So long as he keeps turning in prodigiously quick laps, he can be indulged at
the team’s Brackley base to his heart’s content.
“I am not sure if they are used to having a driver be quite as hands-on,” he
says. “When I created the seat, they were a bit surprised. The guy who
normally does it just stood to the side and watched.
“Every seat has been perfect and it was this time: you sit in this
beanbag to mould it around you, then use sandpaper to file it down. I did
all of that, I always do. They told me it was the lightest seat they had
seen. I just like to be involved. I like to learn.”
The visions of Hamilton the master craftsman, who was similarly exacting in
fashioning a personalised steering wheel and pedal box at McLaren, are not
always to everybody’s taste.
This season he has taken to flying himself and his bulldog Roscoe around the
globe in a £20 million private plane painted candy-red: the ideal lifestyle
accessory, perhaps, for a 28-year-old who lives in tax exile on the French
Riviera and dates former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger, who has arrived
in Malaysia to support him.
“Everyone has been supportive of this move,” Hamilton says. “It has been
received well by all my cousins and both my parents, really.” The word
‘really’ is instructive, as the 2008 world champion has had a much more
detached relationship with his father since Anthony ceased to be his manager
in 2010.
“My dad doesn’t say a huge amount about it. I haven’t really spoken to him.”
That he is fully satisfied with his decision to join Mercedes is, it seems,
enough. The team might project a façade of machine-tooled German efficiency
but Hamilton claims it is a misconception.
“From the moment I got here, the guys could see that I meant business. They
know I am not here to mess around. Still, it is a fun team.
“Ross runs a tight ship, but he allows things to feel relaxed. No one stands
to attention when he walks into the garage. He creates a good environment.”
As one might expect of their marquee name, whom they paraded at the Petronas
Towers here in Kuala Lumpur on corporate duty, Mercedes are furnishing
Hamilton with a top-of-the-range car – a black SLS that he can hardly wait
to come off the production line.
When asked mischievously if he is on the normal waiting list, he replies by
invoking the head of Mercedes-Benz: “I am sure I could call the boss, Dr
[Dieter] Zetsche, and he would help me out if I need it. But I probably
won’t use up all my favours just yet.”
Hamilton is already storing plenty of them away through his commitment to the
cause. For the second grand prix he has qualified higher than German
team-mate Nico Rosberg, who was once an adversary during their days in
go-karts and with whom he now shares the same apartment block in Monaco.
Rosberg is at least unflustered by the challenge, saying: “This is what I came
here for. Lewis is very ferocious.”
Such single-mindedness can in part be ascribed to Hamilton’s fitness, which he
has raised to formidable levels under Finnish trainer Antti Vireula. As he
prepares to tackle the Malaysian heat, which for 56 laps at speeds of up to
200mph can raise a driver’s temperature to over 40 degrees, it is an
invaluable quality to possess.
“The last race was physically the easiest I have done for a long, long time,”
he says of his fifth place in Melbourne.
“That is always a positive when you are going into this second race, which is
quite often the hardest. It should be a lot easier, because my overall
strength has improved. I did so much work over the winter.”
Hamilton never expected to garner 20 points from the opening race in
Australia. Nor did he imagine he would be so close to achieving pole at
Sepang in only his second race in Mercedes colours.
The potential for what he can accomplish in the cockpit of his sleek W04 is
limitless, now that he appears every bit as comfortable in his own seat as
he evidently is in his own skin.