Brits on Pole

Quick-hit pre-race reading: there’s a long Q&A with Lewis Hamilton in The Telegraph today.

We wouldn’t recommend this if you’re looking for relief from Steve Rider’s Dimblebly-esque intonations, because this piece is, if anything, even more ponderous and reverent in tone: “Today he has the opportunity to make his mark on the history of Silverstone, to climb on to the podium of posterity alongside the great British drivers…”

Honestly.

But if you can filter that out, and also the somewhat inane questioning (”How brilliant is it… how surreal is that?”) there’s a few nuggets in there. Not least the admission of what sounds like a distinctly friendless existence in Switzerland.

Here’s an excerpt:

The life of Lewis Hamilton revealed in the McLaren Formula One driver’s own words

I was in GP2 I’d wake up in the morning at my parents’ house, as I was still living at home, do my emails, do my driver report for my engineer, go out training, come back and have breakfast. I’d really have to stretch the day out to keep myself occupied, because otherwise there was nothing else to do.

I couldn’t hold down a regular job because I was always racing and training - now it’s a bit different. It’s like when I got back from Bahrain earlier this week: I spent five hours at home [in Switzerland] on the Tuesday, then flew to Britain, went straight to a meeting, then did some PR stuff. I got home for a couple of hours to see the family, then the next day I had back-to-back commitments at five hours each, then back to the airport to fly home. Then I was off testing; then it was the race. I could go on forever. It’s very difficult to explain how much my life has really changed. Read full story here…

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