How a YouTube video helped Hamilton to his new high

You may choose to criticise Lewis Hamilton for his off-track lifestyle. You could troll him for his (now erased) social media antics. Or you might question some of his fashion choices. But if there is one area where you would really struggle to knock him, it's for what he achieves on track.

Hamilton's charge to the 2017 Formula 1 championship, which was sealed as Sebastian Vettel's title challenge fell apart in Asia, was perhaps his most complete season in grand prix racing so far.

The peaks were high, records were broken, and there were very few lows. In fact, beyond a qualifying error in Brazil (which came after the title was won), it is difficult to recall a moment when the Mercedes driver made an error of any serious consequence. Vettel, on the other hand, will need no reminding about his Azerbaijan, Singapore or Mexico incidents.

Yet to understand Hamilton's step change from the troubled 2016 campaign - which ended under a cloud as his sporting ethics were laid open to question with the way he tried to back up Nico Rosberg in the Abu Dhabi finale - it's important to understand the eradication of errors on track owed much to what was happening off it.

Sure, Rosberg's departure changed a lot in Hamilton's world, but there were other factors too that helped reset his relationship with the team - some of them well known, others less so.

One of the key moments was that much talked about meeting between Hamilton and Toto Wolff in the kitchen of the Mercedes boss's then-home in Oxford a few weeks after the end of the season.

It was very much a clear-the-air moment and, chatting late last year to Hamilton about it, he hailed it as a "purification" of their relationship - wiping away any bad vibes left over from the Rosberg era and the events of Abu Dhabi.

"If you are at the office and your boss doesn't want you there, it's going to be a shit environment, isn't it?" said Hamilton, when asked about the value of that meeting. "You want to work there but you don't. That's just negativity drawing away from what you're great at.

"That meeting was really important to reset things, so when I arrive and the guys know I'm going to be giving it everything, they work that extra bit harder, and vice versa.

"If there's any negativity or question, it can only hold us back. So it was almost a purification of the relationship, and a restart of the solid foundation we had already built years ago."

Yet that meeting was just a starting point for putting things back on track with Mercedes, and helping cement a unified partnership where team and driver were running together on the same path rather than plotting their own individual journeys.

Trust improved, dialogue was more open and there was a much greater mutual appreciation of where team and driver sat in the bigger picture - and especially what was expected from both sides.

"If you are at the office and your boss doesn't want you there, it's going to be a s*** environment, isn't it?" Lewis Hamilton

On the sportsmanship front, for example, Hamilton was pointed towards a YouTube clip of the post-match Australian Open speech that losing finalist Rafael Nadal gave after a tough defeat to rival Roger Federer.

In comparison to the recrimination, acrimony and bitterness that hung over Hamilton's defeat in Abu Dhabi, Nadal - despite being just as hurt at losing out on a title he was as desperate to win - had a totally different way of dealing with his loss.

Fighting back the tears to start with, Nadal spoke for four minutes, with grace, dignity and humour to explain his disappointment, but also show great sportsmanship in congratulating Federer on what he had done.

"It was amazing the way he was playing without being on the tour," said Nadal as he gestured to his rival. "It is very difficult to make that happen - for sure you have been working a lot to make that happen.

"So well done, congratulations. I feel very happy for you... today was a great match, but probably Roger deserved it a little bit more than me, so I will just keep trying," he added, pausing briefly for crowd applause, even being able to laugh about having finished runner-up three times without managing to get that victory trophy.

Nadal's behaviour was something that the crowd clearly relished, and for Hamilton perhaps a good example that learning how to lose is just as important as knowing how to win. In fact, it is probably no coincidence that several times last year he referenced the two tennis rivals when it comes to discussing his F1 opposition.

For example, responding to suggestions that Vettel's mistakes were the result of too much pressure - with them all coming on weekends after Hamilton had dominated - Hamilton said: "I don't know. That's difficult. Anything I say would just be an assumption. Pressure points. Weak points. You just keep your foot down, keep the pressure on and when the other shows sign of weakness...

"Look at Federer and Nadal, at some point in the game, one will see a slight weakness in the other - even if just half a per cent. That's what they try to capitalise on and which makes the difference, and that's really how it has been. The key for me is to be the most solid driver here."

In fact, much of Hamilton's step forward in becoming a stronger driver has come from being able to step back from the difficult moments, understand and rationalise them - knowing that the new found trust in the team allowed him to say what needed saying, without fear of it being used against him.

It's why the issue of Hungary - when Hamilton and Mercedes faced a bit of soul searching over team orders at a time when Ferrari was throwing everything behind Vettel - actually acted as a solidifying force for the team, rather than something that risked pulling it apart.

"Hungary was... we'd just won Silverstone," says Hamilton, recalling the period of the campaign that came before a stunning second half. "That was really the turning the wick up.

"It was like you've been sailing without wind then suddenly you pick up the gust. Silverstone felt like that. The right blow, like when [boxer] Anthony Joshua gets the right hit and the guy's on the back foot after that. I had that feeling there.

"We went to Hungary and we were not quick enough. I don't feel like that was a moment where we felt we had to get our act together. I don't feel like it unnerved us at all.

"Hungary was a special weekend because the difficulties we went through plus the scenario we had as a team really solidified the dynamics in the team and sent such a positive ripple effect throughout the team.

"When you have a trainer they're whispering, hanging around, they nag you, push you, which is all good but you can get complacent and lazy because you rely on something" Lewis Hamilton

"It was like, 'OK, this is what we're here to do, this is how we're going to operate, these are our core values'. That was a very, very important weekend in that respect. So whilst we didn't win, it was a huge win in terms of our unity."

That unity carried on after the summer break; as Hamilton got on top of the Mercedes 'diva' - and the post-Hungary chats proved just as valuable as that Wolff kitchen moment.

"From the Hungary experience, it really just added a good amount to the foundation of the relationship with the team, with the engineers as well," Hamilton continued. "We just worked better from then on.

"And my understanding of the car... I did some studying during the summer, to analyse where I'd been with the car and just basically jotting down this is what the car wants, this is how I've got to drive it. And then I just did that consistently throughout the season."

There is very much a sense that Hamilton's feeling of being more comfortable inside Mercedes has helped him be more comfortable with himself too.

He is happier doing his own thing; whether that's his off-track lifestyle or even choosing not to have his own trainer - in a bid to get more self-motivated in what he does. It is about the need to push himself rather than be pushed by someone else.

"I just wanted to go back to my roots," he said about not having a trainer. "Up until F1 I didn't have a trainer and did all my training on my own.

"There was also an expectation at home. My dad's working at 6am every morning so I was like, 'I've got to get to the gym, I've got to get to the gym, my dad's working, I've got to be working just as hard as him'.

"I remember one day I went to the gym, pulled up and passed out [asleep] in the car! I was gone the whole day and dad's like, 'you been working out the whole day?' And I'm like 'well, no, I slept a little bit then worked out!'

"It was about trying to get back to finding that within myself, because when you have a trainer they're whispering, hanging around, they nag you, push you, which is all good but you can get complacent and lazy because you rely on something.

"I wanted to get away from that. I had great training at the beginning of the year. I've got to figure the dynamic for [2018] but I like that."

While Vettel will head into the new season well aware of how his red mist moments cost him last year, there is a sense of Hamilton being happy with where he is at right now after a year where he has shown a new-found maturity.

"You just grow," he says. "I feel like with my decision making, while you keep your core values the same, you strengthen them. Understanding and appreciating things more.

"If anything my mind's grown the most. I really feel like I drive today just like I did when I was eight years old in the go-kart. That's something I love and that's why I've enjoyed it [in 2017].

"As a driver it's not just about being quick on the track, it's about consistency, all the other bits of your life, the pieces of the puzzle being in the right place."

And who would have thought that a kitchen chat, and a short YouTube video, could have been so important in helping him put those puzzle pieces together?