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Hamilton's promotion to F1 for 2007 was a shock inside McLaren team

A new book released this week offers insight into the surprise inside McLaren when members of the team learned that Lewis Hamilton was being promoted to Formula 1 in 2007.

Hamilton, now a four-time world champion, was famously signed to partner Fernando Alonso at McLaren in '07 as a rookie after winning the GP2 title the year before.

While he made an instant impact, battling with Alonso on his debut in Australia on his way to a podium finish, winning for the first time in just his sixth start in Canada, and fighting for the title until the final race, before the year began it was impossible to know how well he would perform.

Former McLaren mechanic Marc Priestley, who has released a book about his time in F1, said the news of Hamilton's imminent arrival came as a shock inside the team.

"I remember working at McLaren when talk of Lewis Hamilton started arising," he said.

"He wasn't a Formula 1 driver at that point, he was working in GP2, but he was starting to ruffle feathers, he was starting to be noticed by the Formula 1 fraternity.

"I remember people talking about him coming into McLaren as the next Formula 1 driver, and at the team we thought 'Wow, this is crazy, this is just a young kid' - not many people had even heard of him at that point.

"When he turned up, however, it was pretty clear he was a special kid. He was very very young, but he was super quick in a racing car."

Zdroj: autosport.com