• Ex-champion admits he was trying to juggle too many issues
• Jenson Button has private dinner with McLaren team-mate

Lewis Hamilton, who admits he was “battling everybody” last season, and Jenson Button have had a private dinner for only the second time since their intense rivalry at McLaren started two years ago.

A relaxed-looking Hamilton has come to terms with the fact that he had too much on his plate on some occasions last year.

“I wasn’t operating on all cylinders,” he said. “There were times when – such as Abu Dhabi – I was on good form, but still not 100%. And that’s where I want to be this season.

“There were times last year when I was juggling too many things. There were too many things hanging over me, too many things which were unfinished, questions in my mind, whether it was purchases, investments, management, lawyers or family.

“There were lots of things and I didn’t have the pieces of the puzzle in the right place. I was all over the place last season. I didn’t think anything was a positive. But I’ve corrected things and now I’ve got a clean slate. I’ve got nothing worrying me.

“Last year I was battling everybody. I was having trouble with stewards, I was having trouble with many different people. I want to fix that. I’m looking forward to having a good relationship with Felipe [Massa] and from the end of last year I’ve been working on my relationship with the stewards. I’ve got to stay out of trouble so I don’t have to visit them so much.”

The two former world champions have always enjoyed a good, though very competitive, professional relationship at the Woking-based factory. But last season was Hamilton’s most difficult in Formula One and he finished second to his team-mate.

As the two men prepared for the first testing session of the season in Jerez this week, Button said: “We went out for dinner after the Brazilian Grand Prix at the end of last season.

“We had some steak and it was fun. The only other time we have dined together was when I signed the contract. It was good. We have spent two long years together and most of the time it has been behind the wheel or in the engineer’s office and we’re always in uniform or answering questions about each other.

“So it felt good to have dinner together and look at the past couple of years and have a laugh about it.” Speaking about his relationship with other drivers, Button added: ” I’m all right with other drivers. I don’t hold a grudge with drivers. If I do something wrong I go and get it out with them immediately.”

The new Formula One season gets under way in Melbourne in six weeks.

Sport: Lewis Hamilton | guardian.co.uk

McLaren have worked hard to avoid last year’s ‘abysmal start’ and it’s looking good so far – but the real test is yet to come

Any chance to visit McLaren’s Technology Centre, Sir Norman Foster’s swooningly beautiful kidney-shaped low-rise building, with its mirror-like lake and elegant landscaping, offers a treat to the eyes, particularly on a glittering winter morning. On Wednesday there was another beauty on hand in the shape of a new Formula One car, the MP4-27, with which the Woking-based team intend to recapture their pre-eminence.

Unveiled by Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button in a ceremony streamed to sponsors and fans around the world, the new McLaren-Mercedes conforms to regulation changes which ban last year’s exhaust-blown diffusers and impose restrictions on the height of the nose section. It is said by the team’s technical director, Jonathan Neal, to be an evolution of last year’s car, which started the season badly but had more or less caught up with its chief rival by the end of the year, winning six of the series’ 19 races. Button finished second to Sebastian Vettel in the drivers’ championship, while the team were runners-up to Vettel’s near-invincible Red Bull in the constructors’ standings.

“Our biggest problem last year,” Button said after pulling the dust sheet off the new car, “was that we couldn’t get in the laps in the test sessions because of reliability problems, so we couldn’t work on fine-tuning and getting the balance right.”

Martin Whitmarsh, the team’s principal, agreed. “It was an abysmal start,” he said. “We didn’t have reliability or pace. But we’ve put a lot of work into this car and we don’t think we’re going to see a repeat of that.”

The ambition for the coming campaign is to start on the front foot, confirming that the design decisions taken during the 12-month gestation period of the MP4-27 were the right ones. Last year’s U-shaped sidepods have gone, replaced by a more shapely design around the car’s hind quarters. The nose is more shapely than had been expected, given the stipulations of the new rules.

“It going to make a big difference, and it’s given the aerodynamicists a lot to think about,” Button said. “The new regulations take away rear downforce, but I’ve driven cars without it before, and basically you just rebalance. When I first drove it in the simulator it needed quite a bit of work, but I’m happy with the direction we’ve taken.”

In theory, a car with less grip at the rear should suit Hamilton better than his team-mate, who is said to prefer a car with even downforce front and rear. “Our styles of driving are a little bit different,” Button said, “but the way we set up a car is pretty similar.”

Hamilton emphasised the team’s ability to catch up with their rivals’ technical breakthroughs, as they had to do last year when they found themselves lagging behind Red Bull’s use of exhaust gases to increase grip. “We’re the strongest team in terms of development,” he said.

This year they will be hoping that it is others who need to do the catching up, but they are sharply aware that Red Bull’s standards are unlikely to drop. “They’re not suddenly going to build a bad car,” Button said.

The new McLaren will undergo its straight-line aerodynamic test in the next few days in the hands of Oliver Turvey, one of the team’s test drivers, before being taken to Jerez for the first test sessions of the season, from 7-11 February, at which point the world champions of 2008 and 2009 will get their hands on it.

“As you can see, it’s a beautiful car,” Button concluded. “Some of those you’ll see will not be. To me, that’s important.”

Whitmarsh had a quick retort to that. Formula One cars become beautiful, he said, when they start winning races.

Sport: Lewis Hamilton | guardian.co.uk

• McLaren launch new car at Woking base
• Sutil’s comments are given the brush-off

McLaren launched their new Formula One car before a global audience on Wednesday. And the global audience dutifully gawped in wonder, even though the new creation, the MP4-27, motionless and driverless and tilting sharply to the right, looked as if it had just come off the track at Suzuka’s notorious 130R turn.

McLaren’s more significant relaunch at their glitzy Technology Centre in Woking came in the shape of the sport’s most vivid driver, Lewis Hamilton, who looked a revitalised figure after the most difficult season of his career last year, when he was beset by problems on and off the track.

Hamilton, who was beaten by his team-mate, Jenson Button, for the first time in his McLaren career in a season marked by clashes with stewards and other drivers, has spent much of the winter among the mountains of Colorado.

“I feel fresh,” he said. “I had a really good winter. The team gave me a good bit of time off after such a long season, and obviously we went through a lot. I had friends and family there and was able to find out what they thought and how I could improve. I knew where things were wrong and it’s not easy to clarify them in the mind but I was able to do that. There are still things I’m working on.”

Hamilton, 27 last month, added: “There have been lots of highs and lows but last year was definitely one of he toughest years, personally. And also with the racing. I had a low moment when I lost the championship in 2007 but that was just one moment.

“A lot of it is in the mind. And if you’re clogged up with a lot of things and operating at only 60% there’s a loss of time. But I feel as though I’m back to 100% right now. Last year was one of those years where I had a lot of less energy and less focus where it needed to be. But now the focus is where it needs to be.”

Meanwhile, the 2008 champion has put as much clean air as possible between himself and his former close friend Adrian Sutil after the German driver described him as “a coward”. Sutil was upset by Hamilton’s decision not to testify at the former Force India driver’s two-day trial in Munich this week and hit out after being convicted for causing grievous bodily harm to Eric Lux, chief executive of the Lotus team owners, Genii Capital. After being given an 18-month suspended sentence and fined €200,000 (£167,000) Sutil said: “Lewis is a coward. I do not want to be friends with someone like that. He is for me no man. Even his father sent me a text message and wished me luck for the process. Lewis came with nothing. He has changed his phone number. I could not reach him any more.”

But Hamilton, who did offer a statement for use at the trial, refused to get involved when the issue was raised at Woking on Wednesday. Before Hamilton could answer a question relating to Sutil’s remarks a McLaren spokesman said: “We’ve been told Lewis shouldn’t really go there because it might go under appeal, so can we move on to the next question?”

Hamilton nodded in the direction of the spokesman and said: “I’ll listen to him.”

Sport: Lewis Hamilton | guardian.co.uk

• McLaren driver takes a positive line on next season
• ‘I’ll look back on this season and say I needed that’

For Lewis Hamilton brave new dawns have too often turned out to be yet more dusks but there was an air of serenity about him here on Thursday as he arrived wearing a diamond-encrusted rosary given to him by his former girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger with whom, he said, he had been having reconciliatory meetings.

As he prepared for Sunday’s final grand prix of the season at the Interlagos circuit, where he won his world championship in 2008, the McLaren driver said: “This is almost like the first race of the season or at least this is the beginning of what’s to come.

“I was talking to a friend just recently, who is very wise, and I said it’s been a very difficult year. He said: ‘It’s not been a difficult year, it’s been a year of growth,’ which I thought was one of the most positive things I have learned this year. It really has been a year where I’ve just grown. I’ve learned a lot from it and I can take it to next year.

“So I feel positive about it and in the future I’ll look back on this season and smile and say: ‘I needed that.’ I feel I’m now absolutely prepared for the championship challenge next season, and for me the preparation for it starts from here. Next year is going to be an interesting one I think.”

As if this season had not been interesting enough. It has been marked by crashes with rivals and clashes with stewards and his mind, clearly, was in turmoil for most of the summer. But he drove thrillingly in South Korea last month and again in Abu Dhabi 11 days ago to record his third win of the season. “I am very happy to be here,” he said. “I’ve great memories of being here in the past. Actually she [Scherzinger] was here with me when I won the world championship.

“It is not that I feel different, it is the way I am approaching it. The new season starts here. I had a good race in Abu Dhabi with things going in the right direction, so it starts from now. I don’t have to wait for next season.”

Despite some recent negative pictures of himself with Scherzinger he said: “You didn’t catch us at the best of times. But what you didn’t see is that we had a really good week.

“We had a couple of really nice lunches together and that day we had a really nice dinner. Unfortunately you didn’t get any nice pictures of coming out of that. It is still very early days. We still have very, very strong feelings for each other and I still love her very much. Who knows, maybe we will be together in the future.”

Sport: Lewis Hamilton | guardian.co.uk

• Lewis Hamilton pips Sebastian Vettel in afternoon session
• Mark Webber is fastest in earlier Brazilian GP practice

Lewis Hamilton’s outstanding recent form continued here on Friday when he beat Sebastian Vettel to top place in the second practice session for Sunday’sBrazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos.

He beat the German world champion’s car by 0.167sec, with Mark Webber coming third, Fernando Alonso fourth and Hamilton’s McLaren team-mate, Jenson Button, seventh. The leading four cars were within 0.206sec of each other.

Hamilton’s run will give him confidence for Saturday’s qualifying session. But with rain forecast – and more for the race on Sunday – the weekend is something of a lottery.

The British driver was in good enough form in the morning run, when he came third behind Webber and his compatriot Button, though it was in the afternoon that he found his fastest pace.

His first good run was bettered by a swift-looking Michael Schumacher. However, it took only six minutes for Hamilton to return to the top again on the track where he won his solitary world title in 2008.

“The car felt really good today – on both high and low fuel,” Hamilton said. “I think there’s still a bit more to come but we’re looking strong for the rest of the weekend.”

The Ferraris of Alonso and the home hero Felipe Massa were again off the pace. Massa came fifth in the morning, one place ahead of his Spanish team-mate, and in the afternoon Alonso was fourth and Massa sixth. Their racing form, of course, has been better than their qualifying performances all season.

On a difficult afternoon for Alonso he was forced to park his car with five minutes to go with a failure of an engine that was coming to the end of its scheduled life – the second time in three races that has happened to him in practice.

Button, meanwhile, is confident that McLaren will make a stronger challenge for the title next year. He said on Friday: “I think we’re stronger now than we were at the end of last season. The exhaust system we were trying was massively different to what everybody else had and I think we perhaps put too much faith in one component of the car.

“I think we’ve learned from that mistake and we won’t have a winter like the last one, when we didn’t really test. We’d do about five laps in the morning and then the exhaust would break and we’d wait for a new one to be fitted or for fresh parts to arrive from the factory.

“We definitely won’t have a winter like that. We will be ready for the first race and won’t just turn up and bolt on a new exhaust, although I have to say the guys did an amazing job to find pace that hadn’t been there over the winter.

“We hadn’t tested the car, made any improvements or evolved any set-ups, though, and the first two races were like that.

“We’ll be better prepared next time but it’s impossible to know whether we’ll be able to win the opening race.”

Sport: Lewis Hamilton | guardian.co.uk

• Formula One chief concerned about British driver
• Says Hamilton faces ‘wrong influences’ since split from father

Bernie Ecclestone has described Lewis Hamilton’s decision to put his affairs in the hands of a management company dealing primarily in showbusiness figures as “a disaster”. Speaking to the Guardian, the Formula One supremo criticised the 2008 world champion for splitting with his father, who had looked after him throughout his career until they parted company just before the 2010 season.

Discussing the current generation of top drivers, Ecclestone described Sebastian Vettel, who won his second title in a row last month at the age of 24, as “super – a nice guy, very talented, good for the sport”. Ecclestone also had kind words for Jenson Button, Hamilton’s McLaren team?mate and the runner-up to Vettel. “I’m very happy with Button this year,” he said. “He’s done a really good job and he’s been much better as a person with the public than he was when he was the world champion [in 2009], which is good, because he’s a nice guy.”

For the 26-year-old Hamilton, however, it had been “an uphill year”, Ecclestone said. “I think he had some personal problems during the year which affected him quite a lot. A lot to do with these things, it depends an awful lot on the people you surround yourself with, and who are in a position to influence you. I think he just fell into a lot of people that I think weren’t good for him. When his dad was looking after him, his dad was a bit more … obviously it didn’t suit Lewis, which was why they split, I think he didn’t appreciate how much help his dad was.”

After considering options, Hamilton signed a management contract in March with XIX Entertainment, run by Simon Fuller, the inventor of Pop Idol, whose clients include David and Victoria Beckham, Jennifer Lopez, Will Young and Andy Murray.

“I think it’s a disaster,” Ecclestone said. “He gets to meet people that probably he wouldn’t have met, and [who] have probably the wrong sort of influence on him. He’s at the age, perhaps, and he has the amount of money, where when he’s influenced, he can carry things through, which he wouldn’t normally have done.”

Fuller masterminded Beckham’s move to Los Angeles in 2007, supervised the successful transfer of Pop Idol to American television and has his own star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Hamilton has often flown to Los Angeles during this year to be with his girlfriend of four years, the singer Nicole Scherzinger, from whom he split in October, a few weeks after reports that they had become engaged. His season was marked by erratic driving and numerous collisions with rivals as well as the two grand prix wins that took him to fifth place in the final standings of the drivers’ championship.

Ecclestone was critical of Hamilton’s decision to invite the rapper Ice-T into the McLaren garage during this year’s Montreal Grand Prix. Ice-T made a film of the visit which later appeared on YouTube.

“It’s our fault, because we tend to encourage celebrities,” Ecclestone said. “It’s good. Not so much for those of us who get our hands dirty but for all the sponsors who turn up with their guests and like to say: ‘Oh, we saw whoever-it-was.’ They forget they’ve come to watch Formula One. The difference is that we can handle them, because we’re not directly involved. He [Hamilton] sees somebody like that, he admires the guy, so he’ll start copying a little bit what they’re up to.”

The 81-year-old Ecclestone also dismissed recent reports that headhunters have indentified Sir Stuart Rose, the former chief executive of Marks and Spencer, as a replacement to be appointed by CVC Capital Partners, to whom Ecclestone sold Formula One’s commercial rights and for whom he now works as a £1.25m-a-year employee.

“It’s all rubbish,” he said. “There’s no headhunter. We’re looking. If somebody turns up that we think can get the job done, super. We’ll have to find somebody. Or, if for any reason I’m not here, maybe things will be run in a different way. Maybe there will be four Ecclestones doing different parts of the job. I’m lucky enough to be able to travel the world on a handshake. There’s a little bit of respect because I’ve been around a long time, and people trust me because I’ve never cheated people. I can do things that it wouldn’t be easy for a new guy to do. And I’d like to live a little bit longer.”

Sport: Lewis Hamilton | guardian.co.uk

• Formula One driver responds to Bernie Ecclestone criticism
• Hamilton angered by attack on company run by Simon Fuller

Lewis Hamilton has again launched a robust defence of his management team. XIX Entertainment, run by Simon Fuller, has been heavily criticised by the Formula One rights holder, Bernie Ecclestone.

Ecclestone told the Guardian that he was concerned that XIX’s celebrity clients were distracting the former world champion, who has had an indifferent and at times controversial season after being involved in a series of crashes.

“I think this year XIX have taken a huge amount of criticism which has been massively unfair and that’s a lot to do with me, my fault really,” Hamilton said.

“They’ve wanted to be here every single race, they’ve been nothing but supportive. I control it and I decided not to have them at every race because I wanted to be on my own at some races. For the future I’ll have them at every race.

“But they’ve taken negative criticism and they’re still there supporting me. They’ve never ever had any impact on my thought process of how I handle things. I’ve really taken that all on board myself.”

With hindsight Hamilton believes he could have used XIX far more effectively than he did and again has proposed change for the future.

Hamilton said: “This year I’ve not used the resources that I have to the optimum. But I know that moving forward it will be a successful relationship and partnership. I think they’re fantastic.

“Recently I had lunch with Simon in New York and I loved it. He’s a really fantastic guy. I couldn’t be happier with the decision I’ve made because I’ve some incredible people around me and I’m really looking forward to the future.”

Sport: Lewis Hamilton | guardian.co.uk

McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton has endured a troubled year in F1, with car problems, girlfriend problems and track clashes

Anthony Hamilton steered his son Lewis as father, manager and mentor from karting through to a Formula One debut in 2007, when he was beaten to the championship by one point, and on into the following year, when he took the title by the same margin.

His role was not that of the traditional manager and it even caused some disquiet in the paddock – a forceful presence never far from his son’s side. Just one year later on the eve of the Bahrain Grand Prix, the first race of 2010, the driver announced his father would no longer manage him and that he would take on the role himself. The Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has described the decision and the driver’s subsequent use of a management company as “a disaster”.

Perhaps it should not have been such a surprise that this hugely successful young man wished to be more in control of his destiny. He noted tellingly, after the split, that while growing up: “School felt like an escape. It was my time to mess about and have a kid’s life – to be normal.”

That season, the absence of a close professional and personal relationship seemed to have little ill-effect. He was in the fight for the championship at the final race in Abu Dhabi, where Sebastian Vettel claimed the win and the title. This year could not have been more different.

From the start, an off-the-pace McLaren did not augur well but speed was to prove the least of Hamilton’s problems. By the second meeting in Malaysia he had received his first drive-through penalty. There would be four more in a year during which he would be investigated by the stewards 14 times. Despite the win in China that followed, he was in trouble again at Monaco, clashing with Felipe Massa for the first time in a season during which the pair seemed unable to avoid one another on track, coming together on six occasions.

That he found himself regularly competing with Massa rather than at the front of the field must have been exasperating but when he was given two drive-throughs at Monaco his frustration was given voice. “Maybe it’s because I’m black. That’s what Ali G says,” he said in a flippant remark for which he later apologised.

More importantly, it was also clear that he felt he was being singled out: “It’s an absolute frickin’ joke. I’ve been to see the stewards five times out of six this season,” he said, as questions started to be asked about how well he was coping without his father. Hamilton signed with Simon Fuller’s XIX Entertainment management company in March, a decision initially welcomed by Anthony. But Fuller’s organisation played the more traditional behind-the-scenes role and besides the clashes, retirements and bad luck, he simply was not achieving the results on the track. Again frustration and clear dissatisfaction were the result when, before the British Grand Prix, with McLaren way off the pace, he complained volubly about the amount of sponsor-related work he was expected to do, and then in Canada where he arranged a private meeting with the Red Bull team principal, Christian Horner.

By the time F1 reached Singapore, the 14th race of the year, he had won only twice, had not been on the podium since the fifth race of the season in Spain and was being strongly outperformed by his team-mate, Jenson Button. Under the floodlights there was further contact with Massa, which earned another drive?through, after which his father, back in the paddock managing Paul di Resta, questioned Fuller’s role. “His management need to do more,” he urged.

At the Japanese Grand Prix, Hamilton dismissed as “rubbish” suggestions that he would benefit from having someone to talk to. “If I wanted to speak to anyone I would give my missus a call and speak to her,” he said. But things were falling apart off the track too. Visibly so in Korea. The joyously celebrated mid-season win in Germany had been a flamboyant victory and he drove brilliantly in Yeongam to take pole and fight off Mark Webber to hold second place in the race, but his reaction was resolutely stern. While insisting he was happy, his demeanour suggested otherwise and he commented tersely : “I’ve had the worst year, if you expect me to be all happy-doolally after a race like that you’re not going to hear it.”

Soon afterwards he admitted he had split from his girlfriend of four years, Nicole Scherzinger. An already tough season had been further complicated as he coped with another part of normal life, although, interestingly, he did admit: “I’ve my family who are helping, so I feel pretty good”.

How many of this season’s trials and tribulations can be attributed to management is debatable. Certainly a faster car would have made have a big difference but what Ecclestone described as “an uphill year” closed with a final win in Abu Dhabi before, by this season’s standards, the relatively serene exit of a gearbox problem and reconciliation with Massa in Brazil, from where he contemplated: “In future I will look back on this year and smile and say: ‘I needed that.’ I’ve grown up a lot this year and I want to take it into next year.’” Which may be a big one – it is the final year of his contract with McLaren and a new deal has yet to be signed.

Sport: Lewis Hamilton | guardian.co.uk

Red Bull may not everything their own way next year as Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button start to challenge Sebastian Vettel’s dominance

Do not say a word in Milton Keynes but suddenly Red Bull are looking a little anxiously in their rear-view mirrors. The most successful Formula One team over the past two seasons have been even more dominant this year, eradicating the silly errors and reliability issues that delayed winning both world championships last year. But they are no longer having everything their own way.

If Jenson Button wins Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix, and the world champion, Sebastian Vettel, finishes fourth or worse, which is hardly an outrageous scenario, then the British driver will have been more successful than his German rival since the Hungarian Grand Prix at the end of July, which is virtually the second half of the season (he is 12 points behind over those nine races).

In the first 10 races of the season Button won four podium positions; in the past eight he has been up there spraying the champagne on seven occasions. His McLaren team-mate, Lewis Hamilton, who has had a troubled time on and off the track this year, has also returned to his best form recently, with great drives in South Korea, where he was second, and in the last race in Abu Dhabi, which he won. His dominance of practice here on Friday was another reminder that there is now nothing – or very little –between the Red Bull and McLaren cars, although the giants from Italy and Germany, Ferrari and Mercedes, are still dragging their tyres.

There is another battle going on, just as intense as anything that will be seen at Interlagos: it is the battle to sign the best talent among the mechanics and engineers. Red Bull have revealed that every member of their team has received an approach from their rivals. Mercedes, in particular, have been recruiting furiously. Jonathan Neale, managing director at McLaren, said: “The jobs market is very intense at the moment. You can feel it. Behind the scenes there is an awful lot of raiding of talent going on.”

This in itself could become another issue. The Resource Restriction Agreement is a legally binding document to which all Fota teams are signatories. Some teams, particularly Ferrari and Mercedes, are angry that this may have been broken and would like the agreement to come under the umbrella of the FIA, which would then be able to penalise transgressors through its international sporting code.

Meanwhile, everyone is expecting a great season next year, with Mercedes and Ferrari joining McLaren in their pursuit of Red Bull. Neale said: “I think it will make it a great start to the season next year: close racing with pretty well standardised engines and tyres; the drivers playing a greater and greater part in the determining of how a season goes; and having two world champions should stand us in good stead.”

Because of a bad winter, when they failed to do enough testing, McLaren have been playing catch-up all season. But they have been narrowing the gap. There is also a sense that next year Red Bull’s designer, Adrian Newey, may struggle to keep his winning team ahead of the rest, especially as there no major changes coming, apart from the new exhaust regulations. It is when there is a fundamental rule change that Newey has been able to show his innovative genius to the full.

Button is also confident that he will have a greater input into the car next year. “The great thing at the McLaren team is that they really do listen to what you say,” the British driver said. “I came here with a lot of experience from other teams. Working with engineers, other technicians, and I know what I like from a car. It definitely has improved over the past two years.

“But still there are areas where we can improve and where I can make myself more comfortable within the car. We’re doing a lot of work in the simulator to help the balance for next year’s car already. Every race I do, I do an hour or two for next year.

“We’ve really improved as a team in many areas, pit stops being one of them. Maybe we haven’t been as consistently as quick as Red Bull, but we’ve got stronger and there is a great atmosphere in the team.”

Neale said: “Red Bull eclipsed everyone in qualifying for the first half of the season, but, progressively, ourselves and Ferrari have been able to close the gap in qualifying. There have been a couple of tantalising races recently where we put a car on the front row but we haven’t quite been able to get pole position. We need to winter well.”

Sport: Lewis Hamilton | guardian.co.uk

• Race commentator calls on McLaren to be competitive
• Former Benetton driver joined at Sky by other BBC staff

Martin Brundle, who was confirmed on Wednesday as one of Sky Sports’ Formula One commentary team next season alongside other figures from the BBC’s coverage – David Croft and Ted Kravitz – has emphasised the need for Lewis Hamilton to be mentally prepared and for McLaren to be competitive from the off in order to fight for the world championship in 2012.

Brundle noted that the British driver’s team-mate, Jenson Button, had enjoyed a better season but that Hamilton possessed the skills to come back next year. “Jenson’s on a roll,” he said. “I think its absolutely clear that Lewis’s speed and determination and skill is totally undiminished. It is a question of whether he can put himself in a mind-set where he can deliver that, week in, week out.

“Almost any sport is 90% in the head and we all know, having observed him this year, that’s what he needs to get right. He knows how to press the throttle and the brake that’s for sure.”

Hamilton’s team would have to play their part too, however, after presenting a car that was uncompetitive at the start of this year, argued Brundle. “We’re all desperate for Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes Benz, particularly the first two, to hit the ground running with a car that works out of the box and not something that they get up and running by July,” the former Benetton driver said. “That’s what we’re waiting on, because you know [Red Bull designer] Adrian Newey won’t be getting it too far wrong,” he said.

Joining Brundle, Kravitz and Croft from the BBC at Sky will be the Peugeot Le Mans driver and BBC Radio 5 live commentator Anthony Davidson and the reporter Natalie Pinkham, and ITV’s former Formula One anchor, Steve Rider, will present interviews with racing legends.

The new signings are a blow to the BBC, which is in a seven-year deal with the satellite broadcaster to show F1 but in a bid to cut costs bought the rights to show only 10 races live each year, in contrast to Sky, who will broadcast all the live races and have set up a dedicated F1 channel to do so. Brundle, whose knowledge and experience is widely respected, will return to the role of expert, and Croft, hugely popular from his 5 live commentary, will take over the lead role. It leaves the BBC with only Jake Humphrey, David Coulthard, Eddie Jordan and Lee McKenzie from this year’s core team across both television and radio.

The shift of allegiance had not been centred on money, despite rumours, said Brundle. “Let me be absolutely clear,” he said. “If it was the BBC that had all the races live and Sky hadn’t, I would be moving from Sky to the BBC, because that is the driver in this.”

Money, in terms of subscribing to the F1 channel, has been an issue for fans, however, alongside concerns about the potential decrease in exposure for the sport in the UK, which Brundle acknowledged but did not believe was key. “I know there’s a price point to get access to Sky,” he said. “If not, it’s on the BBC and there’s copious amounts of coverage elsewhere, so as a Formula One fan I just don’t see an issue and the important thing is every race is going to be covered live.”

The change of rights has been popular with the teams, who will receive more income (and more exposure down the grid due to the increased volume of programming Sky is promising) but central to the broadcaster’s plans will be the hope that bringing some of the top BBC talent to the channel will bring the viewers as well.

The World Motor Sports Council approved the provisional calendar for the Formula One 2012 season on Wednesday, confirming that it will consist of 20 races including meetings in Bahrain and the United States. There had been considerable doubt as to whether the US race, to be held at a track being constructed in Austin, Texas, would be included due to concerns about financing. However the organisers, Circuit of the Americas (Cota), have stated that an agreement with the F1 commercial rights holder, Bernie Ecclestone, has been reached, the Cota investor Red McCombs saying: “Mr Ecclestone received his cheque today for the USGP.” The race is scheduled for November.

Sport: Lewis Hamilton | guardian.co.uk