On the face of it, you might be forgiven for thinking that
McLaren's decision to promote
Lewis Hamilton into an
F1 race seat alongside
Fernando Alonso for 2007 was a pretty bold gamble.
In the team's 40-year F1 history, they've only so far signed a driver with no previous F1 experience on five occasions. They were Jody Scheckter back in 1972, Bruno Giacomelli in 1977, Alain Prost and Stephen South in 1980 and Michael Andretti in 1993 - and two of those five were pretty damn handy, I think you'll agree, going on to win world championships. A third was just out of his depth thanks to a combination of unfortunate circumstances. I'll leave you to work out which was which...
I don't think we need worry about Lewis's future. Over the past two years, he has dominated both the F3 Euroseries and GP2 championship with a poise and unruffled assurance which marks him out as an obvious an intuitive talent. And, for all McLaren's idiosyncrasies, I reckon he's in absolutely the best available environment to learn the ropes.
The Woking brigade are a bedrock F1 team, just like
Williams, so if Lewis throws it into the wall occasionally - like
Nico Rosberg did for Frank in 2006 - they will just shrug it aside as all part of the learning experience. Hell, Jody Scheckter wiped out pretty much half the field on the opening lap of the '73 British GP at
Silverstone and it didn't do one iota of damage to his reputation.
