DC: LEW COULD DO A ’ROSBERG’

going well, Lewis is the most recognisable face on the grid and there are moments when you see the pure enjoyment, the little boy in the man.

“As long as that light’s getting switched on from time to time, he’ll continue to show up and do it.

“But when the passion goes, you can fool others but not yourself.

“That could happen at the end of the year, it may even happen during the season.

“It won’t take much for him to say, for the want of a better phrase, ‘F*** it, I’m off ’.

“I don’t think he is motivated by money, but he can afford to make that decision.”

Hamilton will set off from the grid on Melbourne’s Albert Park circuit as odds-on favourite with nearly every High Street bookmaker to claim his third title in four years. Only Schumacher (91) can boast more Grand Prix wins than Hamilton’s 53 – and Coulthard warned there may be few mountains left for Lewis to climb. He said: “Every sportsman has his peak, and if he doesn’t stop there then decline will set in. “Maybe Hamilton’s met his match, though the evidence of Bottas at Williams suggests he’s not at the same level as Lewis. “Remember Peter Warr once said Nigel Mansell would never w i n a Grand Prix ‘as long as there’s a hole in my a***’, and Nigel went on to win a lot because he got an exceptional car, and became a world champion. “Maybe Bottas is suddenly going to appear as this winning machine that nobody saw coming – including Hamilton.”

Coulthard believes Hamilton may also miss his rivalry with Rosberg, which often brought out his best competitive instincts even if that did not always conform to team orders from the Mercedes garage.

There is no history of enmity between Hamilton and Bottas.

But Coulthard said: “I don’t suppose they really know each other. I never really liked any of my team-mates.

“I get along with Mika Hakkinen now when we bump into each other, but we weren’t buddies at Mclaren because his success was my failure and vice-versa.

“We both lived reasonably close to each other, but we used to take separate cars to the airport, different planes and different cars to the circuit, just to walk into a debrief and sit opposite each other. Ridiculous, but you want to beat your team-mate more than be friends.

“Lewis has speed and won’t fear Bottas. What we are losing this year is the light and shade of Nico and Lewis not liking each other.” ■

When the passion goes, you can fool others but not yourself