'Hamilton is hugely impressive as a man'

James Allison, Mercedes technical director, has been speaking of his enjoyment at working with Lewis Hamilton in the 2017 campaign, and in an interview took time to lavish praise on the world champion, branding him 'hugely impressive as a man and a driver'.

Allison jumped ship from Ferrari to Mercedes in 2016 and at the end of his first full season with the constructor he reflected on a stunning year which saw Mercedes clinch the constructor's championship and Hamilton clinch his fourth world championship title.

In an interview with Autosport where Hamilton was lauded as one of the drivers of the year across all of motorsport, Allison took time to focus on working with Hamilton the man, rather than the driver.

He moved to try and confound some of the rumours about what the Brit is like to work with, and in general could not have been more glowing about his professionalism and ability.

He said: ""The most remarkable thing about him [as a driver] is just his raw, raw speed. You don't get all those pole positions without being a pretty special controller of the car. I think I'm very lucky to work with a whole bunch of very good people, but his ability on a Saturday is second to none. And he rarely drops the ball on race day having put it on pole on Saturday.

"His disappointment in himself when he makes very rare, normally quite small, errors is also very admirable. I've worked with drivers who tend to lash out when they screw up; Lewis doesn't do that. That's a pleasurable aspect of working with him."

Allison also praised Hamilton's temperament in dealing with mistakes that the team or others around him make, and stated that the manner in which he deals with setbacks sets him apart from other drivers he has worked with.

He continued:"When we screw up, and we have done on a number of occasions this year -- most notably the headrest incident in Baku -- he's been completely and utterly calm and reasonable about it, even though the points swing created by an event like that is big.

Similarly, when we were forced to ask him to take a gearbox penalty in Austria, same deal -- it just didn't faze his approach to the weekend. Those are nice things when a driver's like that."

Finally, Allison added that it is vital to seperate what people may perceive of Hamilton from his social media profiles and who he is as a person, and was quick to defend his right to live the life he wants to lead.

He concluded: "Earlier in the year I'd spoken about the fact that he was impressive as a man. I imagine there'll be people hearing that who see the Instagram Lewis and the fashion Lewis, who'd be thinking, 'Really?' You've got to look at his career as a whole.

"Every great champion we've seen in recent years, in some way or another they've done something really ugly on the track that we'd all love to excuse somehow or another because we like our heroes, but you just look at it and go, 'No, that's just plain ugly.' He's not [done things like that].

"He just goes out and races with his huge gifts, and when actually he's called to do something that is the right thing to do, he steps up and does it -- even when it is very, very difficult to do it and the whole world is watching. That's the sort of thing I mean when I say he's impressive as a man."