Engineering the right advantage

Motor Sport/ Formula One Championship: Alan Henryon the team work required to guide a rookie to the top of his demanding profession.

When Lewis Hamilton accelerates away from the start of tomorrow's US grand prix he may be riding alone in the cockpit of his McLaren but he will be tracked every inch of the race from the pit wall by his engineer, Phil Prew, who will monitor every element of car and driver performance.

The relationship between a formula one driver and his race engineer is one of the most symbiotic in the pit lane. They work as a team within a team, concentrating on maximising the output of an individual car as well as, in Hamilton's case, developing the newcomer's style and racing technique.

Throughout each race Prew is at the other end of the radio link to the pits, gently advising Hamilton as to how the race is unfolding strategically as well as how he is performing against his formula one rivals. "The preparation process is twofold," Prew said. "There is preparation for the racing and preparation for the circuits. In racing terms, from the moment Lewis was confirmed with McLaren last November we've been working through a large development programme to ensure that he was totally proficient in certain areas that apply to all races by the time we got to Melbourne.

"Race strategy, pit-stop strategy and the stops themselves are three obvious ones and he also had to be able to give extremely accurate feedback about how the car feels and how it responds to minute changes. The list is long. Preparing for the circuits is a separate challenge, and to have raced at some of the tracks in other formulae is of limited benefit. Whenever Lewis goes to a circuit in a formula one car it is a new experience to him. The requirements of driving a formula one car compared with GP2, for example, are so different that we effectively have to start from scratch."

Hamilton agrees with his engineer. "Formula one is so tough and the cars are so much faster and your reactions have to be so much quicker that even the tracks I've been to before need to be relearnt. Being familiar with them helps a bit but sections you thought were straight in a GP2 car feel like corners in formula one."

The preparation is intense.

"Before any race we look at the extensive telemetry data amassed from the past couple of years and compare it with the video footage of our drivers," Prew said.

"We look at where they have gained or lost lap time, how they have approached the corners, where they start their braking and so on. We also watch in-car videos of other teams' drivers, but without the data to go with it it's harder to identify exactly what they are doing well. Lewis's driving style is still developing. That makes it very important to try to keep his mind open about how to drive particular corners and ensure he's aware that some turns have more than one line, each of which has different consequences.

"Choosing between the lines is the hardest thing to prepare Lewis for, but that's really a racing skill. That's where he's the expert."

Hamilton has also benefited from spells on the sophisticated simulator which McLaren have developed in secret at their Woking headquarters and which he and Prew have used to help tackle the new challenges of grand prix racing.

"The simulator is a great tool," Hamilton said. "Obviously there's no substitute for actually driving at a circuit but it enables me to familiarise myself with the tracks as well as work on car set-up. The level of detail is pretty incredible, which really helps when you are trying to identify reference points to help keep your laps consistent. These could be anything: the 100-metre marker board, the beginning of a grandstand, the end of a fence and so on - the same things you look for when you walk a track before a race."

Even before he arrives at the circuit to undertake this crucially important walk with Prew he will have received a detailed dossier from the McLaren engineering team which gives him an overview of what to expect at the race.

This includes maps, gear ratios, historical data and even a weather forecast. Similarly, once the race is finished the driver receives a correspondingly detailed pack of data reviewing how he and the car have performed, including any mistakes he may have committed along the way.

"One of Lewis's great strengths is his openness and willingness to listen, no matter if what you are saying is positive or negative," Prew said.

"If there is something he needs to improve, we say so. It's as simple as that. There are no airs and graces about him and he's not set in his ways either. He's just eager to learn from everybody around him, including Fernando Alonso. Having a team-mate of his calibre to learn from has already been of huge benefit to Lewis."

• Guardian Service