Highlights

McLaren boss wants to cool the Hamilton hype

(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-11-25 13:32

McLaren boss Ron Dennis has appealed for Lewis Hamilton to be given breathing space after the young Briton was confirmed as world champion Fernando Alonso's Formula One team mate on Friday.

Describing the 21-year-old's journey to Formula One, and a place in history as the first black grand prix driver, as "a little bit of a 'My Fair Lady' story", Dennis cautioned against excessive hype.

"I would ask all of you to try and appreciate that it's not going to work for him if we hype him to a point where he's not given any space to manoeuvre in the first few races," Dennis told reporters in a conference call.

"That's not going to be good for him. The aspect of mental resilience is still something which only reality will test," he warned.

"Formula One is a very pressured environment with lots of people, and not just the media, sniping at you when you fail and you've got to experience that.

"Statistically, Lewis is going to find it tough in the first few races of his grand prix career.

"You only have to look at the first few races of Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher to realise that unless he is something really exceptional, and that I doubt because they are two really exceptional drivers, you can't expect -- and nor do we expect -- immediate performance."

RACE WINNER

Hamilton will be the first driver to make his debut with former champions McLaren since Denmark's Jan Magnussen in 1995 and he will have the toughest of team mates in Alonso, the Spaniard who has won the last two titles with Renault.

Hamilton, whose parents are separated and whose father -- of Grenadian descent -- once worked for the British railways before setting up an IT business, has been backed by McLaren for a decade.

Dennis said Hamilton, champion in the GP2 feeder series this year, could be a race winner in 2007 but it would take time.

"Having an expectation for him to win next season is not unrealistic if we have a strong car performance but certainly not in the early part of the season," he said.

"He doesn't have to be too obsessed about the competition, he just has to focus on his own performance and as long as he is making constant progress through the first few races he will be given every opportunity and time to blossom as a grand prix driver."

Dennis recognised that the appointment, with the decision taken at the end of September, of a rookie with limited time in a Formula One car was a gamble but said it was one that McLaren, with Alonso in the other car, could afford.

He said McLaren had reviewed the entire Formula One grid before making their decision and had found nobody with more to offer than Hamilton.

"If you take out the recognised top three, one of whom (Ferrari's Michael Schumacher) retired, we felt that in looking at the others...there was no-one who really shone," he said.

"We felt Lewis was worthy of being given the opportunity of showing what he can really do.

"Of course we have reservations, he's an unproven product as it were. But we have a double champion in the other car so we don't think we're going to get lost as a result of not having experience.

"This allows us to be a little bit less concerned about giving Lewis a chance."