Lewis in the Spotlight

Caught in the most highly publicised debut a British driver has ever endured, Lewis Hamilton coolly raced to a sensational podium finish. By ADAM COOPER

Lewis Hamilton arrived in Melbourne on Wednesday accompanied only by father and number one fan Anthony, and no other entourage - the extended family won't be seen until the European season starts. They will at least be able to view the home movie Anthony has of his son's weekend, made so that "the grandchildren will enjoy Lewis's first day at the office".

Straight after arrival Lewis walked the track with his engineers, before plunging into press and PR commitments on Thursday. There were the usual pre-weekend team meetings, with every eventuality talked through at length.

But the real work for Hamilton had already been done, as McLaren chief operating officer Martin Whitmarsh explained: "One of the things we said to him six months ago is 'Let's be in Australia with the perspective that there is nothing else we could have done.'"

FRIDAY PRACTICE

Melbourne's weather forecasters proved to be spot-on, and Friday morning brought heavy rain. It had stopped by 10am, but the track was still soaking wet. McLaren let a few others go out at the start of the session to clear the worst of the puddles, before Lewis and team-mate Fernando Alonso headed out after five minutes, equipped with extreme wet tyres - which Hamilton had never sampled in testing.

After their single exploratory laps, Alonso was back out in just 10 minutes, but McLaren kept Lewis in the pits for over 45 minutes, sensing that there was little point in letting him run in the worst of the conditions. It was still wet when he finally had a chance to learn his way around. At the end he squeezed in one hot lap on dries - enough to go fourth of those drivers who made the late switch, but 1.6sec off pacesetter Alonso.

Lewis signed autographs for the fans. "We will always make time for the fans," said proud father Anthony © LAT

"He had to go out and do his first lap of his F1 career on extreme wets," said Whitmarsh, "on a slippery circuit that's narrow and unforgiving. He then had to progress through changeable conditions onto wets, and did one lap on dry tyres and was just immediately on the pace - completely unfazed by the pressure and circumstances."

After that cautious start, and following a lunchtime debrief, Lewis was free to explore the dry limits in the afternoon. He was out early this time, and with a red flag punctuating the session, he completed 29 laps, sampling both the soft- and medium-compound tyres.

His best was the 25th, the first flying lap on soft rubber. Inevitably fuel weights and tyre usage confused the issue, and perhaps flattered a little by running the softs in the better conditions at the end, he was third. Alonso, on a different schedule, set the seventh-best time much earlier. After the session, Lewis was whisked away to his first FIA press conference. He dealt with the media like an F1 veteran, but the inevitable sponsor appearances proved a distraction.

However, Anthony insisted that Lewis make time for autograph hunters at the paddock gates, something that drivers such as Kimi Raikkonen very obviously failed to do.

"That was us once, and we would have killed to have had some attention 13 years ago," said Hamilton Sr. "We'll always make time [for the fans] for five minutes at the start and end of each day."

SATURDAY QUALIFYING

After more meetings, dinner with his dad, and a good night's sleep, Lewis was ready to step up a gear on Saturday. Unfortunately, with the race engine for Australia/Malaysia now fitted, he had to ration the laps, but early damp conditions meant that wasn't such a great loss. After an early systems check lap with the new engine, he sat in the pits for nearly half of the one-hour session.

With a set of mediums and softs to use up, he did two runs, setting his best on the 10th of his 12 laps. Again it was good enough for third. Remarkably, Alonso was again in seventh, some 0.3sec behind, banging in his best lap right at the end.

There were no signs of any first-day nerves or rookie mistakes. © LAT

Two more hours of analysis, and it was straight into qualifying proper, and a system which returnee Alex Wurz once described as "brutal". Lewis went out relatively early in Q1 on the medium tyre, and set a time that instantly put him at the top. Intriguingly, Fernando then went second, albeit just 0.023sec slower. Only Raikkonen went faster.

Into Q2 and things became a little more serious. Running a single set of soft tyres, Lewis improved on his earlier time by over a second to earn what would eventually be third. Some 0.025sec behind Hamilton after his first run, Alonso then went quickest. But that was only after he went out on an extra second set of soft tyres for what appeared to be no logical reason, while Lewis watched from the garage.

Now came Q3. The team had already decided that Alonso would be pitting in the race two laps earlier than Lewis, in effect giving him a built-in advantage in qualifying of around 0.2sec. Hamilton did four fuel-burning laps before stopping for his first set of soft tyres, before posting a 1m27.190s - quickest at the time, but soon beaten by Raikkonen and Alonso.

He then took his second set and improved to 1m26.755s, putting him behind Kimi. Alonso then took his second place, before Nick Heidfeld bumped him down to fourth. Alonso's advantage was 0.262sec - and most of that could be put down to the fuel load difference.

By now Hamilton had completed 69 laps of Albert Park, including ins and outs, fuel burning, and wet conditions. Track veteran Fernando, meanwhile, had done 79. There was much to discuss with the engineers, but no great debate with his father.

"I've said nothing to Lewis this week," said Hamilton Sr. "He came with a clear mind and I didn't need to clutter it up. He knew what he needed to do - we just met for dinner and that's really it. I don't really get involved unless he has a problem. I'm here for support, so if he says, 'Dad, I have an issue,' we'll work it out and find a way to relax his mind again.'

SUNDAY RACE

The 2pm start must have seemed a long way away when Hamilton arrived on Sunday morning. He had team meetings, PR commitments and the drivers' parade, all stuff that he could not have simulated.

"Let me in, I belong here..." © LAT

"I saw a glimmer of pressure about an hour and a half before the race," said Ron Dennis. "You could see he was tense and wanted to find a quiet place. But this is F1, and we have obligations and race preparation. I saw his steely resolve power through. When he gets into the car he switches to a very focused, disciplined mindset."

Anthony was well aware of his boy's concern: "Racing the car and preparing yourself for the car is one thing. Preparing yourself to be pulled left, right and centre is another. In the junior formulas like F3 or GP2, it's calm before the race. You've got 30 or 40 minutes, you're just chilling out and you go and lie down. This is the first time he experienced F1, and it didn't happen. Anyway, we found 20 minutes for him to just chill, and that got him back on track. It's all got to be done, but it's all a learning curve."

Nothing could prepare him either for all the fuss on the grid with cameras and photographers all around. But if there were any concerns in the minds of Dennis and Hamilton Sr, they were surely alleviated at the start. Boxed in on the inside on the run to turn one, Lewis was savvy enough to cut his losses and switch to the outside route. It was pure racer's instinct, and it paid off as Alonso - making his 89th start - found himself hung out to dry.

"Lewis started to get squeezed," said Dennis, who clearly loved the moment. "Nine times out of 10 when you're squeezed like that, you keep your foot in it. It takes a lot of intelligence to lift and then go round the other side. Not only did he go round the outside, and get a better run into the corner, but it actually put him ahead of his team-mate - which was pretty impressive."

"That is years and years of karting," said Anthony. "You've got to train your brain to think quickly and find the right places to be at the right time. But you would have thought that when he eased off and moved back he'd be lost. Instead he ends up overtaking people. That's just crazy! He's a racer, with a really quick brain."

The downside was that the much lighter Nick Heidfeld was ahead of both of them, and his presence allowed Kimi to make his escape. The BMW was holding up the McLarens, although it wasn't always evident because they hung back slightly to generally conserve their equipment. Indeed, Alonso was able to save himself an extra lap of fuel with the sort of savvy driving that comes with experience. Thus when he finally came in, it was only one lap before Lewis - but that was still enough to allow Hamilton to get out of his own stop in front.

Over in a flash: Lewis's grand prix debut - one of the most successful in F1 history - passed without incident © LAT

This time Alonso had been fuelled to go further and have the advantageous later second stop. Carrying a little extra fuel, he stayed with Hamilton and then snuck ahead with a sprint after the Briton pitted. It was game over as far as second place was concerned and, on the tricky soft tyres and with his engine due to race in Sepang, Lewis was under orders to cruise to a safe third. The gap also opened up because the tyres suffered some graining.

At his stop Hamilton had taken his unused fourth set, while Alonso - who had, of course, used an extra fourth soft set in Q2 - had no choice but to use scrubbed tyres in the race. That actually proved to be the better bet. Then came one of the other things he could not have simulated at the McLaren factory - his first F1 podium ceremony, and the backslapping that followed.

"Lewis was phenomenal, wasn't he?" said Whitmarsh.

"If you analyse every day, what happened on Friday in those slippery conditions, what happened in qualifying, what happened at the start, how he conducted himself throughout the race - it was a perfect weekend."

"If you don't believe after this weekend, you'll never be a believer," said his proud father. "Whether it's natural talent, or just hard work and dedication, I don't know. But you get what you deserve, and he deserves what he's got."

SIDEBAR: THE FLIP SIDE

Renault's Heikki Kovalainen endured a difficult debut

You only get one chance to make a first impression and, while Lewis Hamilton did everything expected of him and more, Heikki Kovalainen had the opposite experience.

Things started to go awry in the damp on Friday morning when the Finn had a couple of minor excursions. Nothing too serious - many of F1's veterans also took to the grass - but all too visible when you're a rookie and the world is watching.

The real drama came in the afternoon, when a fuel pressure problem stopped him on track. He missed half the session and didn't get to try the soft tyres. There were more gremlins on Saturday morning and he went into qualifying not as prepared as he should have been.

Heikki Kovalainen © LAT

"It shouldn't have been a problem, but maybe it did affect things," he said, a couple of hours before the race.

"But I did enough laps to learn the track, get into the top 10 at least, and then start again in Q3. But I wasn't quite confident enough to attack 100 percent. I did attack, but I made a mistake. I was really disappointed, everybody was, but you can't change it."

His 13th place also reflected the fact that he'd done relatively little low-fuel running in testing: "I was lacking a little bit of simulation, but that's not an excuse. I should have been through, even without practice. If we have a weekend like this we must still be able to qualify in the top 10. I'm not giving up, I'm going to do a strong race."

In the end things didn't run too smoothly, and Heikki had to settle for 10th, and an earful of criticism from his boss. Everyone in the camp knows he is capable of great things - especially the man himself.