When Lewis Hamilton said he had felt the pressure in the last couple of weeks, it was an honest admission that coping with super-stardom is not easy. Everyone wants a second of his time, and expectations are always going to be high when the British driver competes, such is his precocious talent and a country's thirst for a winner and a hero. Had he not won Sunday's British Grand Prix, you wonder just how much the tension would have built and how much more the pressure would have affected him. He has witnessed how the media salute you one minute and then savage you the next.
In a time when we have seen champions ike Justine Henin and Annika Sorenstam decide to quit sport earlier than expected, would it have become too much and drive Hamilton away from the world of Formula One? "Of course you worry about that," said his McLaren chief executive Martin Whitmarsh. "McLaren is perceived to be the most controlling and protective of the F1 teams so it's a dilemma that you have in how you handle Lewis.
"Historically there are those who, rightly or wrongly, will criticise McLaren and say we are over-protective and we sanitise the driver, and then at the moment it's fashionable to say are you protecting your driver enough? "So there's a balance and you will never always get that right in anyone's opinion. Sometimes we try to get that right; sometimes we do and sometimes we don't. "Lewis has had a very difficult and challenging time. To come out with such flying colours, he must now believe he has momentum, the team has momentum and he can come through this."
Whitmarsh, 50, saw first-hand at a sodden Silverstone Hamilton bounce back in style as he put his pitlane mistake in Canada and ragged race in France behind him. He added: "Whatever he is or does, the movie star feel about him is something you want him to retain. "It makes him very attractive to a broader audience. I think one of the things brought it home to me was in America last year at the Indianapolis Grand Prix.
"After the grand prix which he won, I returned to the hotel with Lewis and there were 10,000 people outside and suddenly, we had to deal with crowd control issues. "That was in North America where we have had difficulty because we have not had a consistent campaign and have not marketed ourselves. "I had never seen or experienced that before. We had been to America with the likes of Ayrton and Mika Hakkinen, true great champions in the past, but Lewis can transcend the traditional markets and create that kind of interest.
"It is in all of our interests that he keeps those qualities, but at the same time we have to try to protect him a little bit so that his day job is winning races and winning world championships." He is now level on points with the Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa, and Whitmarsh believes his driver can win the title. "Lewis does try too hard sometimes, but for anyone who is striving to be the best in the world, and be a world champion, you've got to push pretty hard," he added.
"Inevitably when you set the bar as high as Lewis does, if you slip underneath it or knock it off, people are going to understandably question whether this was a passing phenomenon. "It's like being a tennis player and getting a first serve in every time. You don't tend to do that. If you are getting it in 90 per cent of the time, you try to hit the ball harder. "Lewis still hasn't realised his full potential, and he's going to get better. Of course he can be the world champion, hopefully this year. He missed it in his rookie season last year by one point so clearly he can. I don't think anyone doubts that and it is just a question of timing.
"Ferrari are going to fight back, so nobody's writing them off - we are certainly not." @Email:akhan@thenational.ae
