Hamilton’s pledge

McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton is looking sharp, hungry to be back behind the wheel and determined to focus on the future.
 
He believes his disappointing fifth place finish in last season’s Formula One drivers’ championship was in part due to over-indulgence off the track.

The 2008 world champion said: 'Last year quite a lot of times I went out and enjoyed myself thinking that these things don’t affect you but in actual fact they do, they have a knock-on effect.

'It takes you two days to recover, you miss two days of training and your mind is somewhere-else when you get to the race.

'It’s the amount of travel you do, choosing the right time to travel, the right place at the right time, ahead of time. Going out to Australia and China early, to make sure I get there in plenty of time – those kinds of things. They are all sorts of things you can improve.'

Hamilton is also looking more settled at home too. He made a move before the start of the Formula One season and can now call Monaco a home race as well as his favourite grand prix.
 
He has left Switzerland, his home for the past few years, for a new base in the Mediterranean principality where he will have several F1 drivers as neighbours.

'I just fancied a change,' the 27-year-old said. 'It was a bit boring where I was living before, not many people around, so it was good to move,î added the Briton, who had lived most recently in Zurich after a spell in Geneva.

'Where I’ve moved to there are quite a lot of people that I know, quite a lot of the drivers are there. So there’s a bit more of a social life, there’s better weather, it’s by the sea, overall just a bit better.

'It’s kind of cool that you get to be at home whilst a grand prix is going on. I think it will be pretty neat,î said the 2008 Monaco Grand Prix winner and 2007 runner-up.

'I can meet up with quite a few of the drivers if I want to do training, and my trainer is also just up the road. I’ve settled down quite well there.'
 
The championship opens with four long-haul races but Hamilton, who had a nightmare season last year while trying to keep alive a transatlantic relationship with American singer Nicole Scherzinger, intends to be more settled in 2012. 

Hamilton won three races last year but ended up beaten overall by team mate Jenson Button, the 2009 world champion, in a championship dominated by Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel.
 
Testing times can be misleading but the title battle already looks like being much tighter with McLaren, who were playing catch-up this time last year, looking quick and tipped to take the battle to Red Bull right from the start.
 
Hamilton was clearly pleased with how the winter tests in Spain had gone. ìI kept a nice amount of fuel in the car for all of my tests. I wasn’t really bothered with positioning. What matters is when we get to the first race,î he smiled.
 
No new Formula One season would be the same without a raft of complex rule changes prompting teams to try and find any potential loophole in a bid to gain that vital extra millisecond over their competitors.

For the 2012 campaign the  most obvious difference to last season is the car’s nose – described unflatteringly as resembling that of a platypus.

Revision to F1’s code book – a weighty tome full of enough technical jargon to give even the most committed petrol-head a headache – stipulates the lowering of the maximum height of the nose to 55 centimetres from 62.5cm above ground.

Hence the facelift adopted by all teams with one notable exception – McLaren. Discussing his team’s decision to cock a snoop at the new noses Hamilton’s teammate Button said: 'In terms of looks it’s great. In terms of performance, McLaren goes its own way in terms of aerodynamics and down-force and design philosophy so I’m hoping that our direction is right. And, even if it’s not better I’m hoping that we’ve just gone in a different direction to other people.'

The 2012 F1 season gets underway in Melbourne on Sunday. The Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix will be the fourth race of the season taking place on April 20-22.