The coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown period has been a tough time for most of us and tougher still for some others.

Fortunately for me, I have been lucky enough to remain (fairly) busy throughout. However, as others that have been furloughed or seen their freelance workload reduced can attest to, there has been little to fill your day with for much of 2020. And with pubs, restaurants, bowling alleys, shops, arcades, nightclubs, museums and aquariums closed down for long periods of time, we have been forced to be creative.

Luckily, as a Formula 1 fan in the UK, I have had the F1TV archive to entertain myself with. As such, at the start of the lockdown in March, I set about re-watching every Grand Prix since Lewis Hamilton made his debut at Albert Park in 2007. I chose this as a place to start as it coincided nicely with the start of my F1-watching life.

I remember a few bits and bobs from the Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher title eras, but 2007 was when I feel I really became cognizant of the sport in any sort of meaningful way. In particular, I focused on his six years at McLaren, the half of his career that I have found largely under-discussed since he became established as a dominant force in the sport.

Now, my initial memory of the specifics of that era was pretty hazy, especially given that I was only 11 when he made his debut in Melbourne. However, I have a decent recollection of most races and of course, subsequent research and discussion meant that nothing I was witnessing was necessarily new. Instead, I was there to improve my understanding of how each season played out in a more detailed and genuine way than you can get by looking purely at the data or race highlights.

While this piece and the inspiration for it is Hamilton and his time spent at McLaren specifically, there were plenty of other drivers, figures and storylines that made this an enjoyable exercise. There could perhaps be a similar piece written about the journeys of Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button, Sebastian Vettel, Robert Kubica or Nico Rosberg through the same time period that would be equally, and perhaps more, interesting. But my focus is on Hamilton and the first six years of his career.