You can never take competitiveness for granted in F1 - Hamilton

The new year invariably brings with it thoughts of a new season. And with preparations for 2010 already well underway at Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, we catch up with Lewis Hamilton as the number of days until the opening race in Bahrain continues to narrow.

How have you been preparing for the 2010 season? “I’ve been mainly training and trying to keep fit. At the end of the 2009 season, I promised myself that I would aim to be 100 per cent fit and focused on the new year, so I’ve been working hard. When I’m not training, I’ve just been at home in Geneva, preparing for Christmas and the new year.”

Are you looking forward to trying the new car for the first time? “Yes, I’m excited and can’t wait to see it and test it. Hopefully, it’s going to be great for our team next year. I’ll be working closely with my engineers and the team to make sure we all hit the ground running with the new car.

“You can never take competitiveness for granted in Formula 1 – we saw that last year – so our common goal has to be to make MP4-25 a winning proposition as quickly as possible. Only once we’ve achieved that can we start looking at winning races and then, eventually, the world championship.”

Have you had much of a chance to speak to Jenson yet? “Not yet, unfortunately. Our paths haven’t really crossed since he was announced at Vodafone McLaren Mercedes back in November. We’ve both been to MTC for our seat fittings – but they were on different days. The first time we’ll start working together is later this month, when we’ll both be at Woking together, then we’ll have the launch and the first test. We’ll be sharing the pre-season testing equally, and it will be important to keep a crossover of information between us to make sure we are both pulling in the right direction.”