As he prepares for arguably the biggest date on his 2008 sporting calendar this coming weekend – the British Grand Prix, in front of thousands of his adoring home supporters –
Lewis Hamilton has re-iterated his desire to remain with McLaren-Mercedes for the rest of his
Formula 1 career, even if he predicts the toughest challenges are still to come.
Hamilton needs a strong result on Sunday to get his world championship bid firmly back on-track, after relinquishing his post-Monaco advantage following a brace of costly failures to score in Montreal and Magny-Cours, as question marks began to be raised – and not for the first time this season – about the amount of pressure he was putting on himself to lift the laurels in only his second year in the top flight.
He argues
McLaren – whose team principal Ron Dennis has supported him for more than a decade, after first signing the Stevenage ace up when he was a budding young karting star – has helped him to come through that difficult phase, describing his relationship with the Woking-based outfit as 'unique'.
“At the beginning of the year I was surprised by how much pressure I was putting on myself,” the 23-year-old reflected, in an interview with German magazine
Auto Motor und Sport. “Now I just have to say to myself 'Hey, the year is long. Use your energy for the next race, not the last one'.
“Even after an extremely bad weekend you have to get over it quickly. You have to learn what you can and move on. The team takes a lot of the pressure off of its drivers. It's like a big family for me.
“I have been with them since 1997 and I plan to drive for
McLaren my entire career. I have a great contract and would be delighted if the co-operation continues beyond it.”
That current contract was earlier this year extended until the end of the 2012 F1 campaign, when Hamilton will be 27. Speaking after meeting with patients at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children at the weekend, he also made it clear that he expected far harder times still to come.
“You've got to learn to take a step back and realise 'ok, you don't have to do anything, just drive the way you normally drive and you will be fine, you will get by',” he underlined. “It's just part of the learning curve.
“You have your ups and downs and if you don't expect to have them then that's not reality. I haven't met my toughest time in my life as yet, but all of this is preparing me for it.”
The Briton also had something to say about his difficult relationship with the media. Hamilton seemed to lose his composure with the press in France a week ago, initially refusing to speak after taking the chequered flag a lowly and frustrated tenth, but he admitted he expected them to be 'back on my side' again on home turf at
Silverstone this weekend.
“You've just done an hour-and-a-half race and worked your backside off, and then they expect you to sit down and straightaway get out of the car and talk to people,” he said in an interview with
BBC Radio 5 Live. “Are you crazy? Damn man, I'm knackered; I need a drink. Sometimes I like to do that.”
