A winning formula 297x297 28/11/07 12:57 Page 144
harvested from 41 years of racing, the cabinets were located have to give the right information to your engineer. That is
next to the canteen, winking at passing staff to remind them why, before my first race this season, I was here every day,
that the sole purpose of McLaren is winning. It was as though spending three to four hours engineering.’
the staff have been brainwashed into believing one thing. I felt a Cramming the technology and mechanics of his car is part
religious experience coming over me. I suspected the factory of an F1 driver’s job the public never sees; I suspected some
doubles as Ron Dennis’s tomb. Somewhere there, he will be F1 drivers don’t often see it either. ‘I don’t know what other
THIS PAGE, FROM TOP: Sitting pretty;
laid to rest in a sealed room surrounded by his trophies and drivers do,’ Hamilton says, ‘but I study the data. My whole
at home in the pit lane
winning F1 cars, whereupon he will be sped to the afterlife
aboard one of his carbon-fibre chariots.
I looked up and noticed that the clones are converging from
all directions on the canteen.
‘Are the clones all going to meet their controller?’ I asked my
tour guide.
‘Ha-ha! No. It’s the three o’clock tea break.’
‘Tea break? I’d have thought that in a temple to technology,
those would be a thing of the past.’
I ended up in the Emerson Fittipaldi room, where Lewis
Hamilton eventually arrived, casually dressed in a fleecy
brown top with rolled-up sleeves. His angelic features were
shrink-wrapped in a radiant, flawless complexion that seemed
almost back-lit. His hair was closely cropped, like iron filings.
His grip felt like something mechanical crushing my hand.
He looked tougher in the flesh than on television. At 5ft 10in,
10st 10lb, and a 16.5in neck, broad shoulders and a superbly
developed upper body. His forearms were streaked with
pulsating veins like brown thunderbolts.
For six months before the start of the season, Hamilton was
groomed for his F1 debut. Every day, including weekends,
he submitted himself to two, three-hour training sessions:
he swam two kilometres, cycled 50 miles and spent two hours
in the gym. ‘It’s all about endurance,’ he said. ‘There is
nothing worse than getting to mid-race and starting to fatigue,
because your mind needs to work doubly hard to give energy
to the rest of your body, and then you lose focus and you
can crash. It is about your mind being at ease that you are
fit enough.’
While I was given the tour, Hamilton had been running
through computer simulations to get a feel for the unfamiliar apartment is covered in sheets of paper that I have gathered
Canadian and Indianapolis circuits. They clearly did the trick from six months before my first race: details of the strategy,
because Hamilton won both races. ‘I’m a fast learner,’ he says. the starts, the launch sequence, the pit stops, any problems
‘That has always had to be a strength of mine. Some drivers we might have.
don’t have it. I needed it because in GP2 [the feeder series to ‘No one really understands this job,’ he adds. ‘It is so
F1] we had very short test sessions: 10 laps on tracks I didn’t demanding. We need to be fit to do all the travelling, and then
know. So I could go to Canada and Indianapolis without doing be really sharp. Because as soon as you get in the car,
simulations, but this job is not just about driving. We need to you don’t focus on all that stuff. You have to make sure you
make sure the car is set up right. There is so much detail that feel what the car is doing. You don’t just go out, then come
goes into setting up a car, mechanically, on the tech side, back in and go out again. You go out and you have to store all
the software. To have that all set up with traction control, the information, all the small vibrations you get, any problems
the hydraulic diff...’ you may have had, any problems with the engine, or if you lock
‘Hydraulic diff?’ up and flat-spot a tyre, or if you miss a gear shift. You have to
‘You have it on your road car, but it is a lot more sophisticated remember everything. When you get back to the garage, you
on a Formula One car. We can control how much the brake is wait a couple of minutes, then say, “Turns 2, 4, 11, I’ve got this
clamped around each corner. If you go round a right-hand problem. Fix it”.’
bend, the outside wheel has more distance to cover than the Hamilton’s car is his exclusive bespoke office. The cockpit
inside wheel, so the differential compensates for that, and you is built around a mould of his spine, ribcage and shoulders.
control whether it stays locked or how much it eases up so it His steering wheel, pedals, gloves, boots and overalls are
allows the outside wheel to move.’ all made to fit. Whenever Hamilton folds himself into his car,
‘It sounds like you need a degree in engineering.’ it becomes part of his central nervous system; and he in turn
‘You do. I am the driver, but I need to have a very, very good becomes an integral component of the car, so that when he
feel for the car and communications, because development of races, he literally feels his way around the circuit.
the car is the key to the team moving forward. To get your car The car has a nervous system, too. One hundred and
on the front row, it is not a case of going out and driving it. twenty sensors embedded in the chassis measure engine
You need to have the set-up, and to get the set-up right, you performance, aerodynamic efficiency, oil pressure, tyre grip,
torque | 144
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