MONTE CARLO, Monaco -- To the left of his car, Lewis Hamilton had no more than two square metres to make his final preparations ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix. His mechanics had cordoned off the area to provide some breathing space on the heaving grid, but as soon as Hamilton returned from the national anthem ceremony the surrounding crowd inched closer. Dotted around this most valuable patch of real estate, the screens of camera phones flickered as VIPs rattled off tens of frames per second from all angles.
In the middle of the melee Hamilton went through his normal pre-race procedure.