Lewis Hamilton is becoming cute at playing the game in Formula One, finding ways of saying what his team want him to say while also discreetly advancing his cause.

In general, he sticks closely to the McLaren Mercedes party line, but if you listen to him carefully he is becoming increasingly bold about making his case as the team’s No 1 driver, at the expense of Fernando Alonso, the world champion.

Standing on the aft deck yesterday of a suitably vast super-yacht on a beautiful morning in Monte Carlo harbour, around which he will race in the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday, Hamilton did not shout his case to the roof tops; the key part was almost a throwaway remark at the end of a long answer about race strategies.

“I am sure that after [free practice] and before qualifying, we’ll have made a decision,” he said when asked which of the McLaren drivers will be given the more aggressive fuel strategy. “But here you need to be on pole really – I hope I get the opportunity to do that.”

Hamilton knows that arguably the biggest impediment to him winning his first grand prix on Sunday is not other drivers or his limitations, but the race strategy picked for him by the McLaren team managers and Ron Dennis, the team principal.

In qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix 12 days ago, Hamilton was given a heavier fuel load and thus a slower car than Alonso, the idea being that the Spaniard would win pole position in front of his home crowd (a plan frustrated by Felipe Massa, of Ferrari), while Hamilton would fight from the second row of the grid.

Once qualifying in Barcelona had finished, the Briton said that the best he could do there was the second row. But then, and for the second grand prix in succession, Hamilton showed Alonso the way home after starting fourth and emerged in front the Spaniard at the head of the drivers’ rankings by two points.

It would not be surprising if those close to Hamilton and the driver himself believe that he should be given the chance to go for a win on a notoriously tight and twisting circuit, where starting on the front row of the grid has been critical to success. While Alonso won here for Renault last year, Hamilton can point to an immaculate record in Monaco, with three wins in the past two years in junior formulas.

In some ways, McLaren could not be in a better position because they have two drivers fighting for supremacy and the right to go for a title. But the team have a poor record in managing the delicacies of rivalries of this kind and there are signs that Dennis is getting irritated by those highlighting the dilemma he faces this weekend.

Of the two drivers in the frame this time, Alonso is the one under pressure. He has won one race this season, whereas Hamilton has yet to do so, but he has also made at least one big mistake (in Barcelona) and he is struggling to find his form in a British team he and many of his countrymen believe is slanted in favour of its sensational young English driver.

The intricacies of race strategies apart, Hamilton was on excellent form as he posed with the diamond-encrusted helmet he will race with this weekend and that will be auctioned for charity. “It means I’m blinged up – how cool is that?” the 22-year-old, who is Formula One’s youngest World Championship leader, said. “I feel very confident coming into this weekend. The team has done a great job in testing , so I feel optimistic. I’m expecting it to go well. I just need to do a solid job and make sure I’m focused because you need to be more focused here than at any other track. You have no room for error at all.”