Where next for Lewis Hamilton? Well, this year’s already taken care of. He’s ramping up to start his eighth season with Mercedes-AMG, his 14th in Formula One. In 2020, he’ll most likely equal the seven World Championships Michael Schumacher won and is odds-on to eclipse the German’s 91 Grand Prix wins as he does so. Hamilton has annihilated pretty much every other F1 record and established himself as the 21st-century nonpareil sporting superstar. He is a winning machine, global box office, The Man.

But he’s also a conundrum. His career arc since arriving in F1 in 2007 hasn’t just been about winning. At times it’s resembled a spiritual quest (though he’s not yet formally a knight, a shameful oversight given his achievements). So subsumed by racing was his childhood that we all had grandstand seats to watch the child become a man. That’s rarely a pretty process for anyone, never mind in a crucible as febrile as F1, and along the way he said and did some silly things and fell out with his mentor and father, Anthony. Lewis has been lost and found and anyone who’s known him this past 13 years will have encountered various different incarnations. Me, I’ve toured a whisky distillery with him, driven round Dubai alongside him, interviewed him on stage with Damon Hill and Sir Stirling Moss and had a curious public spat with him. Some days it’s easier to warm to him than others.

So where next? Hollywood, it seems. The devoted animal lover and vegan, who donated $500,000 to the Australian bushfire wildlife rescue effort, shared footage last week with his 14 million Instagram followers of him wielding an assault rifle on a shooting range in Simi Valley, California. "I’ve always loved action movies and dreamed of one day being in one. This is where Keanu Reeves trains for his John Wick movies so I came here to start training for my first movie role. This is only day one, was a super fun few hours in a safe, professional environment. Keanu, gimme a call, man's ready," he posted.

‘I’ve always loved action movies and dreamed of one day being in one’

GQ meets Hamilton this time on a rainy day in a huge warehouse in London's Hoxton, where his world-class reactions – he’s good with that gun, it has to be said, whatever you make of it – are being stretched on a drone racing course. A gaming fan and drone owner, Lewis loves tech and travels the world with a bespoke Playstation and monitor in a big case. It looks like a prop from Mission: Impossible. Sponsor Vodafone is promoting its new 5G network and drone racing is officially a thing, with its own world championship and a very particular set of neural and digital requirements (fingers that is, not computers). "The guys who race drones are just wired differently," Lewis says. "I have a drone, for filming, but I’ve never thought of racing one and I tell you it’s so bloody hard."

He’ll figure it out, if he chooses to do so; 2020-spec Lewis is big on self-improvement, aware of what and whom he sees in the rear-view mirror, but intent on outpacing the threat. Somewhat alarmingly, the young tyro now finds himself the second oldest man on the F1 grid: he’s just turned 35. More alarming still, for his rivals at least, is that Lewis is levelling up. Technically, you’re an elder statesman, I tell him...

© Philip Brown/Popperfoto

"No, I am. I need to start paying Kimi [Raikkonen] to stay so I’m not the oldest. Luckily, I think he’s going to keep going. I don’t feel old at all. I feel as young as ever. I feel fit, fitter than ever. Everything just works better now, with the experience I have. I don’t even think it’s harder to stay physically in shape, although I’m sure that will inevitably tail off at some point."

Inevitably. But not yet. The young guns are gathering momentum – Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, McLaren’s Lando Norris, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen – but while Team Lewis is assiduously building the foundations of his post-racing career, the man himself is getting stronger, mentally more than anything. This is one formidable athlete and his approach covers all the bases. Today he’s almost beatific, a six-time world champion whose only beef is with the winter chill. A portable heater is brought over and he practically cradles it. "It’s freaking cold," he says. Surely, I wonder, the motivation must get harder to maintain.

While Team Lewis is assiduously building the foundations of his post-racing career, the man himself is getting stronger

"I’m just a generally very competitive person. I love what I do," he replies. "With Formula One, the technology is always advancing. You’re constantly being challenged. I’d won the championship and I was already in touch with [race engineer] Bono to make notes on things we could improve on. There have been areas this year that haven’t been spot on, so it’s about how we can tackle those, try something different. There are always areas you can be better. If it was perfect, you’d win every race it. Blitz it, probably.

"It’s been relatively consistent in 2019, but there were some ups and downs. We always want to be able pull more out of qualifying, in particular, understand the tyres a bit better, extract more from the technology. And all these young kids are coming up and getting fiercer and fiercer. So you’ve got to work twice as hard."

© ANDREJ ISAKOVIC

Michael Schumacher was the driver credited with ushering in a new era of ultra-professionalism, the one who arrived first at the track and left last and even had a mobile gym. Every detail was attended to forensically, advantages eked out wherever they could be found. Lewis, who avoids paddock distraction by zooming around on a mini scooter, headphones clamped to his ears, is going his own way.

"It’s different for all of us. What would work for Michael won’t work for me. You always have to find your own way. You can easily overload yourself mentally and the mental side is key. That’s something I’ve managed to master and the physical side is still very key, too. The cars are getting faster and faster and we’re breaking records. That means the cars are getting more physical, with the G load we have.

‘The cars are getting faster and faster and we’re breaking records. That means the cars are getting more physical’

"Bringing a gym to a track doesn’t work for me. I don’t train during race weekends, it doesn’t serve me well, I’ve tried in the past. It’s all about having 100 per cent energy through the race weekend for me. It’s not that one does more than the other. It’s about how you balance it."

Crucially, another revelation came when Hamilton executive produced 2018 film documentary The Game Changers (along with James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Novak Djokovic), which explored the merits of a purely plant-based diet for top athletes. Among other things, we learn that Roman gladiators were predominantly vegetarian. "Have you seen it?" he asks, eyes ablaze. "Ultimately, you want to feel great. You want to have energy, to be consistent. You don’t want to have the big oscillations and highs and lows in your energy levels. Veganism has eradicated that. When I was 22, it was raw talent. You’ve got an abundance of energy, you’re fit, there are no aches and pains...

© Miles Aldridge

"But I’m always looking at how I can improve. Can my eyesight be better? Can my reactions be improved? Are there new ways of testing my reactions? The ergonomics in the car... how can I make everything simpler? There’s a multitude of things and I’m always trying to raise the bar. One of the things was my sleeping pattern and not feeling right in the stomach. Your gut is your second brain. We’re taught to drink milk and eat meat for protein and I started looking into other areas of research around all this. The first thing was, what’s happening to the animals? Secondly, the impact it can have on your body. That’s a free advantage I’m going to take. If no one else wants it, well that’s their loss."

Meanwhile, this new season is also the last under his current contract with Mercedes. The team that dominated F1’s hybrid era is currently evaluating its future ahead of the sport’s dramatic rules overhaul in 2021. Its multibillion euro investment has paid off handsomely and with an engine supply to McLaren (and other teams) from 2021 keeping it in the frame while it increases its commitment to the all-electric Formula E, exiting as a works player is a possibility. Not that Mercedes will even go there... "This is not a point where we could spread our bets and say, ‘We may stay as an engine supplier and not as a works team.’ This is not what I am saying," Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff commented. "We enjoy being a works team."

© Daniel Sannwald

Much as Lewis Hamilton might enjoy completing his career at Ferrari. As ever, F1 is a chess game and the variables are many. Hamilton is certainly entertaining the idea of a move. "It has been made public that Lewis has had conversations with our chairman," Ferrari’s affable and straight-talking CEO Louis Camilleri admitted. "We clearly are very flattered that Lewis in particular and other drivers want to come and join us." Wolff, a phenomenal manager, has been talked about as the CEO of the entire Formula One operation as it heads into new territory ("a conflict of interest", Camilleri insists). Or he and Lewis could go to Maranello as a driver and team boss duo...

Hamilton is not as much of an F1 sentimentalist as some of his rivals and the lure of the sport’s oldest and most glamorous team isn’t absolute. He certainly doesn’t need the money, even if a Ferrari deal would likely be the most lucrative in F1 history. But as 2020 shakes out, and regardless of his movie star or fashion magnate aspirations, all eyes are going to be on the kid from Stevenage. Man’s ready all right.

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