So, Hamilton signs himself to McLaren for another five years. He says he wants to spend his whole F1 career there. Is this a good thing?

He doesn’t know any other teams, and it appears he doesn’t want to. Schumacher, at least, had experience of two other teams before signing for Ferrari. Is Hamilton’s inexperienced monogamy wise? Villeneuve signed his career away when he put himself into BAR, but we only know that with hindsight. It could have worked.

Driver contracts are complex things – I’m fairly sure there are performance clauses on both sides of them, but there can never be any guarantee that the team you sign with one year will be the same in the next. It might get worse, it might get better. Button knows this from his wranglings with Williams. All the promises of ‘I have faith in these guys making a fast car’ sound incredibly hollow. But maybe driver consistency forces team performance? In the case of Hamilton, regarding his ability and his personality, it just might work.