MotorsProfile/ Lewis Hamilton:After nurturing Lewis Hamilton's talents slowly over many years, McLaren have gambled by elevating their protege to race driver. Maurice Hamiltonreports
McLaren have ended the longest driver gestation period in Formula One history by announcing Lewis Hamilton will be part of their race team next year.
Hamilton will be aged 22 when he goes to the starting grid for the first race in Melbourne on March 18th, almost 10 years after McLaren signed up the driver from Stevenage on a long-term development programme.
This was not a token gesture based on the potential publicity generated by Hamilton's African-Caribbean background. Hamilton has since shown outstanding natural ability and razor-sharp race-craft while winning championships in karting and the lower formulas, culminating in the GP2 title this year.
GP2 is a scaled-down version of F1 in which the level of talent among potential grand prix stars makes for dramatically competitive racing.
Hamilton won five races and appeared on the podium 25 times to win the series by 12 points from Nelson Piquet jnr, who takes up the role of test driver at Renault in 2007.
McLaren's perspicacity has been rewarded - so far. It is a gamble to elevate their protege to race driver rather than provide the longer-term testing role preferred by Renault for Piquet. Although Hamilton has been virtually faultless during his carefully managed progress, Nico Rosberg, who won the GP2 title in 2005, has found the promotion to grand prix racing with Williams more taxing than anyone had imagined.
Even allowing for the Williams being a difficult car, Rosberg's struggle has highlighted the sheer competitiveness that tends to be taken for granted, thanks to the virtually flawless efforts of the best drivers in the world in cars with performance factors split by tenths of a second on a three-mile lap.
With an agreed limit on testing coming into force, Hamilton's chances of learning about a technically complex car will be compromised. Once a grand prix weekend gets under way on a Friday morning, there will be very little tolerance and no room for excuses within a team who need both their drivers to, at worst, score points and, at best, win races and finish on the podium.
It is a tall order for a novice, particularly one driving for a team which is desperate to make up for a dismal season in which McLaren did not win a single race - a forecast that would have been dismissed with derision in 2005 when they won 10 races and, even then, failed to take the championship.
Hamilton has another complication to deal with. Fernando Alonso, the finest driver in F1 now that Michael Schumacher has retired, will move from Renault to McLaren, bringing with him the coveted number one that goes on the car of the reigning world champion.
If Alonso's speed and consistency rocked the confidence of Giancarlo Fisichella in the other Renault during the past two seasons, Hamilton will need a strong mental constitution to deal with the inevitable disparity in lap times between the two McLaren drivers. There is only so much leeway provided by sympathy for a beginner's plight before the reality of high expectation kicks in within a team consuming sponsorship measuring in excess of £200 million (€296 million).
There is also doubt surrounding McLaren's readiness to deal with the surge of media interest that will come with the presence of the first mixed-race driver in F1. Comparisons with golf and Tiger Woods are inevitable and, in many ways, justified. Hamilton is articulate, calm and well groomed. Above all, he is supremely talented. The only fear is that such a dramatic step to the top level of motor sport, and all the expectation that comes with it, may do serious damage to a youngster with time on his side.
It is a risk, but, if it works, McLaren will have capitalised on the shrewdest driver investment of all time.