Jenson Button gets the early edge over McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton

By Tom Cary, F1 Correspondent Published: 10:30PM GMT 05 March 2010

Game for a laugh: it is all smiles after Jenson Button pips his McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton in a pre-season karting eventuality at the team"s Colnbrook domicile

It might usually have been an indoor karting centre on an industrial estate off the M4; their 200cc machines might have appearance at 40mph down the behind straight; and it has to be pronounced they were never on lane at the same time. But each small helps.

The unaccepted competition for the 2010 universe championship kicked off on Tuesday with a pre-season media go-karting plea at McLaren"s old HQ in Colnbrook. And let it be available here and right afar that it was Jenson Button, the Frome Flyer, who landed the initial mental blow.

Hamilton and Button fright being "beaten up" by Schumacher Clarification sought on McLaren back wing Hamilton: Button can pull me to F1 universe pretension Lewis Hamilton"s interruption with father creates clarity Lewis Hamilton no longer managed by father Sport on radio

Somewhat embarrassingly for Fleet Street, Button"s majority appropriate path of about 20.5sec was a full 3 seconds quicker than the tip lead foot, the attach� from the Daily Mirror, that is a sizeable cube of time on a 350-metre circuit. But maybe some-more significantly, Button"s time was not bettered by Hamilton, who followed his McLaren team-mate out onto the track. Would sparks fly?

Would Lewis Hamilton get out of the kart and exclude to shake up hands with his new colleague? Would he heck.

Button and Hamilton could not stop shouting and fooling around with each other; derisive the path times and those of their competition engineers, who had additionally come on this organisation fastening exercise.

So majority for the "Lions" Den" that Sir Jackie Stewart warned Button about when he sensationally left Brawn GP to finish the supposed "dream team" at Woking. It was all unequivocally cosy in Colnbrook, majority as it was when McLaren launched their new car in January.

"I have well known Jenson for a whilst and listened a lot of great things about him," Hamilton told us. "Working with him right afar he is very, unequivocally easy to get on with; unequivocally professional. I was blown afar with how well unnatural he is. It only shows his family upbringing. He"s the kind of man who opens the doorway for you. I mean, I do, too, but some-more for women."

Hamilton did repudiate that at a little theatre the mercury might proceed to climb in the McLaren motorhome. "F1 is the pinnacle," he said. "It is so intense. You cannot know if there will be a difficult time at a little theatre but we are finish professionals with finish apply oneself for each alternative and we would understanding with it professionally."

Button agreed. "We have outlayed a little great time together," he said. "We get on well and the majority critical thing is that we work well together."

The cynics will point out that they are firm to hurl out the platitudes to a organisation of reporters unfortunate to see a little sort of attrition in between them. But the sense gained unequivocally is one of honesty and mutual admiration.

In most respects, it probably helps that Hamilton had such a tough time at the begin of last year. With his car a finish dud, and his repute receiving a battering after he was held dubious competition stewards in Melbourne, the twenty-five year-old was forced to take batch of his hold up and his career. He deliberate quitting the competition at one point.

Listening to him right afar you would never know it. Reunited after a short separate with his girlfriend, the Pussycat Dolls thespian Nicole Scherzinger, Hamilton is so loose that he has only voiced he is interruption ways with his father, Anthony, as his physical education instructor days prior to the deteriorate kicks off in Bahrain subsequent weekend. It feels similar to a new section in his career.

"I am in the happiest place I have been in my hold up right right afar in any case of what happens in the initial couple of races," Hamilton said. "Not all is undiluted but I feel strong; happy with the citation I am taking, happy in my personal relationships. I am in a majority stronger incident as a human being and as a man to be means to cope from my practice last year."

Button, too, is still roving the design of a call that began when he claimed the universe pretension in such stirring conform at Interlagos last October. As he discussed the awaiting of receiving on Michael Schumacher with next to equipment, you could see he believed what he was saying.

"Winning the pretension creates you stronger and it creates you some-more assured in your capability and as a person," Button said. "If you put Michael and me in the car I don"t know who would be quicker. Nobody knows. People will theory and contend they know, but they don"t. They don"t have a clue. I see brazen to racing him again. I wish to go racing now." Just eight days to go.