ACHTUNG! Hamilton’s feeling

Lewis Hamilton has a new best friend, a new private jet and a new sense of purpose as he prepares for a fresh start with Mercedes … and most of all, he’s happy to be alive after escaping unscathed from a high-speed scare that brought a premature end to his Formula One test debut with a new team.

The 2008 Formula One world champion is, as he made abundantly clear at the launch of his team’s latest car in Spain, happy with the way things are shaping up so far after his move from McLaren.

“I’m just happier,” declared the 28-year-old after his first drive in the silver F1 W04 car on a private filming day in sunny Spain. “Happy I’ve got a new challenge, happy I’ve got a new start, happy it’s a fresh chapter in my life, happy that I’ve got this massive challenge in front of me, happy because I’ve got this excitement where I don’t know if the car’s going to be good or bad.

“Happy and excited because I know I can contribute and with a lot of hard work and perseverance I think we can get there. So I’m happy about that.”

Hamilton has swapped a team with which he won 21 races for one that has only one victory to its name since the purchase of Brawn GP in 2009 and had an unimpressive three seasons with the Briton’s immediate predecessor Michael Schumacher.

He knows he has work to do, and little time to adjust before the first race of the season in Australia on March 17, but Hamilton has already been throwing himself enthusiastically into the task in the simulator and testing at the Jerez racetrack despite it coming to an abrupt end during the first session.

The 2008 world champion was doing about 300kph at the end of the straight when his rear brakes failed and pitched his car off the track, across the gravel and head-on into the tyre wall.
Mercedes put the impact, after just 15 laps and only an hour and 48 minutes into the morning session, at around 60kph and the damage to the front suspension was enough to rule out any further track time for that day.

“I hit the brake, and for a split second it was working, but then the pedal just went straight down. It wouldn’t work anymore. Then I just had to brace for impact,” Hamilton said.

Asked if there were still some positives from the day, he smiled and replied: “Definitely. I’m alive.”

Hamilton, who was back in the car on Friday, admitted he had taken ‘a bit of a thump’ but the experience was not new and nothing like the crash he had at the 2007 European Grand Prix at the Nuerburgring when his McLaren lost a wheel. “I’ve been racing for seven years, so it is not like I am lacking in experience, so I am pretty relaxed about it.”

Apart from the prang, first impressions of the new car were positive – if largely meaningless at this stage – although the man who has spent the last three seasons teamed up with Jenson Button at McLaren also had his first complaint – too many buttons.

“In this car on the steering wheel I think I’ve got at least double the amount of buttons and switches that I had on the previous one,” said Hamilton. “I’ve already got rid of quite a few of the buttons as soon as I got here but I still have way more than I had before. The engineers and just the way the team works is different to what I’ve experienced so it is like starting from fresh.”

Hamilton said he was also getting used to different terminologies and ways of working and was making notes as he went along.

“I’m using every skill and experience I have, and I’m asking the team if there’s anything else they need me to do. I’m just making myself as available as possible for any questions,” he explained.

“Last night I was grilling the aerodynamicist and asking questions about the car and pushing for certain things that should be added that other people have. There’s not much more I can do, apart from just keep nagging.”

Asked whether he would be learning any German words to use in private conversations with the team over the car radio (despite Mercedes being England-based and with fewer German speakers than some of their rivals) the British driver smiled.

“I know one (word), but I don’t plan on using it ever,” he said, before reminding himself of one that was printable: “It’s wunderbar. I plan on using that as much as I can!”

Achtung! might be another one to learn quickly if there are more car teething issues but the Briton was less happy talking about the private plane, which according to one newspaper boasts plasma screens, a bar, pull-out bed, a personalised registration and cost a reported $31.48 million (nearly BD12 million).

The luxury should make it easier to spend time with celebrity singer girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger in Los Angeles as well as allowing him to fly around the world with his ‘new best buddy’ – a British bulldog called Roscoe.

“My mum has about five dogs, my dad has a dog as well, but I have always wanted a dog of my own, and I’ve never had the opportunity to do it, so I just went for it,” Hamilton told reporters crowded into the team hospitality.

“I’ve got him a passport, he’s going to travel around with me. I’ve asked (Formula One supremo) Bernie (Ecclestone) for a pass, so fingers crossed he’ll give it to me.”

Whether that happens, with animals normally barred from racing circuits for safety reasons as well as their own welfare, remains to be seen. Ironically, Schumacher was regularly seen on early morning exercise runs at the Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) with his pet dog before winning the very first Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix in 2004 for Ferrari.

Testing moves to Barcelona on February 19-22 and February 28-March 3. The BIC will host the fourth round on April 21.