Hamilton happy to be back at work, defending his title
Lewis Hamilton is relishing being back at work as Formula One’s reigning world champion prepares to defend his crown.
The Mercedes star is this year bidding to win his sixth title, and move to within only one of Michael Schumacher’s record haul.
Unlike in recent seasons, however, Hamilton has not arrived in Melbourne for the sport’s traditional curtain raiser as the bookmakers’ favourite to win the championship.
Indeed, after an impressive eight days of winter testing in Barcelona, it is Hamilton’s Ferrari rival, Sebastian Vettel, who will seemingly start the campaign as the driver to beat.
Hamilton, who turned 34 at the beginning of the year, is gearing up for his 13th season in F1.
Yet, the Englishman, who kept a low profile during the off-season, pointed to his extracurricular activities away from the race track, notably the recent launch of his second Tommy Hilfiger fashion range in Berlin, as a reason why he heads into the forthcoming campaign as motivated as ever.
“I have just come off my break and while I got to do a lot of things that I wanted to do, I have missed working,” he said. “I am a workaholic.
“I love working with people and I feel as soon as I get back to work, I am living my purpose.
“Yes, there are things around the job that I could happily not do because I just want to go racing.
“I don’t struggle with the motivation for that. But, if I didn’t have the other things in my life, maybe that would be a different story.”