A winning formula 297x297 28/11/07 12:56 Page 143
football is nothing compared to the best of Formula One.
Beckham’s marketing persona was superstar fashion icon.
Lewis is a regular guy who is a potential world champion.
I’ve met a few superstars, but this guy is very special. To remain
modest and real in Formula One is fantastic.’
A few days after Monaco, my clearance to interview Hamilton
at Woking arrived, courtesy of one of the team’s sponsors,
but hedged with caveats, provisos and qualifications. I had
already spent two days walking on plovers’ eggs trying to get
around the McLaren protocol in Monaco; some of those eggs
were beginning to crack. A row was brewing about the fact
that, at Monaco, our photographer had had the temerity to go
off and take pictures without authorisation. The ensuing
exchanges bordered on the surreal.
‘So what? That’s what photographers do.’
‘Yes, but she didn’t have the authorisation.’
‘Well, you invited her. Why invite a photographer if you don’t
give her authorisation?’
‘She was just meant to be soaking up the atmosphere.
Anyway, a lot of people are annoyed. As for you, you are not
allowed to quote any of the people whom you interviewed at
Monaco.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you spoke to them without authorisation.’
‘So? The people I interviewed were more than happy to
speak to me on the record.’
‘Yes, but you didn’t have authorisation.’
‘Then why did they agree to be interviewed?’
‘Well… OK, you can write what they said, but just don’t put it
in quotes. And you are not allowed to mention the team orders
issue at Monaco [when Hamilton let slip that the team had
prevented him from trying to overtake Alonso during the race].’
I arrived at McLaren’s HQ in Woking on the Monday before
the Canadian Grand Prix. Approaching it along an innocuous
wooded country lane, the visitor is confronted by a gate that
opened on to a landscaped field, into which is halfsunk a
glass-faced, curved building fronted by a koi carp-filled lake.
Welcome to the nerve centre of Formula One’s most successful
racing team, a £200 million, Foster-designed masterpiece of
contemporary architecture, completed in 2004.
A staff member waltzed me around a mindbending,
high-tech labyrinth of spotless, hushed vistas of glass and light.
The retired F1 cars of world champions Emerson Fittipaldi,
James Hunt, Niki Lauda, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Mika
Hakkinen stood silent and still, time’s relentless march already
made them look boxy and crude compared with the more
menacing silhouette of Hamilton’s MP4-22 car. I visited the
wind tunnel, where, for 19 hours each a day, the team tests 60
per cent scale models of Hamilton’s car, and the machining
workshop that produces 6,000 components each week
‘Were you to write a film script of this,
for the cars. The staff – mechanics, designers, technicians,
machinists and widget-tweakers – all wear black clothing by
no one would believe it. It’s an Hugo Boss, and looked like cloned inmates of a French jail.
astonishing story of a kid chasing his
Boss has dressed McLaren for 26 years. Each year, it
supplies some 22,000 individual items of clothing, T-shirts,
dream, and fulfilling it’
trousers, socks, sweatshirts, jackets, shirts, travel uniforms,
suits and formal wear. ‘Whenever an employee represents
the team, they wear Boss, including Mr Dennis,’ Till Pohlmann,
the head of sport sponsorship at Hugo Boss, says. ‘Even on a
Tuesday morning in the factory, Mr Dennis will wear Boss.’
You couldn’t miss the trophy cabinets. Crammed with
THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Lewis about
thousands of cups, vases, plates, goblets, chalices,
to leave the pits; Lewis talking to a McClaren race
engineer; Lewis with his dad, Anthony
whorled sconces and hideous things set in Perspex,
torque | 143
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