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Lewis Hamilton has pleaded with Mercedes not to ditch boss Ross Brawn

The 28-year-old was speaking ahead of Sunday’s crucial Bahrain Grand Prix which the 2008 champion believes could show his car’s real pedigree as a world beater.

Hounded by claims he could be axed at the end of the year for McLaren’s ex-technical chief Paddy Lowe, Brawn, 58, has masterminded a Mercedes turnaround of almost mythical proportions.

A year ago they were over two seconds off the pace but now, with Hamilton at least, they are title contenders, having finished successive races on the podium.

Equally impressively Hamilton started the last round in China from pole.

“I signed with Ross being here and I’m very happy working with him and the great relationship we are building,” said Hamilton.

“Inevitably at some stage he’ll want to stop. Who knows when that’ll be. I hope it’s not too soon and I hope we get to have many victories together.

“It’s not a case of ‘we’re getting good results we can relax’. He’s still pushing.”

“He has absolutely proved a point. He’s shown even though he’s been in the business a long time he still has that fighting spirit and stuck it out and now its coming good.”

A giant question mark now hangs over Lowe’s future because he has already been sent on gardening leave by McLaren but Brawn has refused to countenance his arrival at Brackley.

Brawn’s record speaks for itself; he has won 99 Grands Prix and 16 constructors and drivers world championships, more than any other designer except Red Bull’s fabled draughtsman Adrian Newey.

And Hamilton said his friendly relationship with Nico Rosberg ensured inter-team rivalry would not wreck his bid to win the world title.

“It helps we’ve got a good rapport and can talk about things and he’s very open if he’s got an issue,” he said.

“He’s very straight forward and vice versa. It’s easy to move on and get on with the job.

“There no point lingering with things in the past. He’s very professional like that.”

And Hamilton said he had even had an apology from new team boss Niki Lauda over previous comments he was “dangerous”.

“We get on surprisingly well. It didn’t seem like he was my biggest fan, but we’d never spoken and when we did he realised we have more in common than he thought.”

Behind the scenes Bahrain is bracing itself for escalating violence from February 14 Youth Coalition with a giant protest scheduled on the Budaiya Highway today 15 miles from the circuit.

And the race will take place on Sunday behind unparallelled security with all fans searched before entering the circut and regular bomb sweeps.

Giant car scanners are being used for the first time and more road blocks have been set up on the route to the circuit.

Facing accusations the security forces have been heavy-handed Police deputy Commandant, Colonel Shaik Hamad bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, said officers had extra training.

“We are giving police updates on techniques for spotting potential [terrorist] suspects,” he said.

“They are also only going through training in public relations to make sure that everything is handled correctly but nicely.”

Jenson Button calmed fears the violence would spill over into F1, saying: “I have to believe the FIA are making the right call in holding a race here.”