Like any ageing champion, Lewis Hamilton faces a most demanding and potentially unsettling season when fellow-Briton George Russell replaces Valtteri Bottas as his Mercedes team-mate next year.

As if battling a 13-year age gap against Red Bull's Max Verstappen was not enough, the 36-year-old seven-time champion will have to contend with an even younger racing partner in a 'new age' formula following a radical regulations overhaul to create closer racing.