The most impressive aspect of Lewis Hamilton’s brief and stellar career in Formula One is not the race wins in his rookie season, nor that he was the championship leader going into the last race, but the way in which he has come to terms with failing to win the title and has moved on.

As the new season beckons, the view at McLaren Mercedes is that the polished young man who became the most successful rookie in Formula One history is in exceptional form. He is super-fit, he has been driving well during winter testing and his mind is where it should be — focused on looking forward to more and greater success, not looking back or dwelling on what might have been.

As one observer who has seen him at work during the off-season put it: “Of course Lewis wanted to win the title last year and regrets sticking it in the gravel [in the Chinese Grand Prix]. But he is not gutted. It’s as if he’s saying, ‘Life is mega and I’m completely on top of trying to do it again and do it again one step better.’ ”

In Formula One, the second season is often harder than the first as expectations and pressure to succeed bear down on even the most confident drivers. Hamilton had nothing to lose last season as he proudly took his place alongside Fernando Alonso, the double and reigning world champion at the time, and he drove with the raw enthusiasm and abandonment of a newcomer having the time of his life.

Certainly he felt the stress build as the campaign went on; he felt the heat of the breakdown in relations with Alonso and the strain on the team wrought by the FIA’s investigations and punishments over the spying scandal, but it was still a relatively charmed life for the 23-year-old from near Stevenage, Hertfordshire.

This time he knows that he needs to go one step farther and clinch the title that he and McLaren threw away in China and Brazil. Hamilton carries the weight of responsibility as the undisputed team leader at McLaren. Heikki Kovalainen, his new team-mate, will be a threat on the track, but there can be little doubt who is supposed to be leading the charge from the team’s headquarters in Woking, Surrey.

In some key respects, things have changed over the winter and these are changes that Hamilton must cope with and not allow to distract him. The technical knowhow in the McLaren driving team is less formidable than it was with Alonso (although Pedro De La Rosa, the test driver, is one of the best), Hamilton has moved to Switzerland and is no longer living a stone’s throw from the team base and there have been further ructions at McLaren — particularly at the top — after their abject capitulation to the FIA, the sport’s governing body, over allegations of cheating last year.

On the plus side, Hamilton is a year older, his experience last season will be invaluable and there is good continuity in his immediate support team. His father, Anthony, has retained his managing and mentoring role; Hamilton will again work with Phil Prew, the race engineer, and will again be accompanied everywhere he goes by his “Man Friday”, Adam Costanzo, his physiotherapist and trainer.

Historically, Hamilton has been devastating in the second year in the formulas he has competed in, with the exception of the GP2 Series Championship, which he won in fine style at the first time of asking in 2006 and moved up to Formula One. So the pattern would suggest that this year could be better than last. But standing between Hamilton and a maiden World Championship are some formidable opponents, not the least of which is Kimi Raikkonen, the world champion, and Ferrari.

Sir Jackie Stewart has been a vocal supporter of Hamilton’s cause during the past 12 months and, like many of his countrymen, is hoping for greater things this season. He worries, though, about the young man’s ability to cope with vicissitudes of Formula One and those of his life as he has progressed from unknown to superstar. He also worries about this year’s car and the impact of the Ferrari/McLaren espionage case, which he says has caused “absolute distress” within Hamilton’s team.

“Seldom do you get the combination of a driver and a car delivering the kind of extremely good performance that was achieved last year. It’s just not that easy,” Stewart said. “There is so much to learn, there are so many things that can go wrong. The biggest question is that some of the things that went wrong in McLaren last year were undoubtedly to do with the disruption that was being caused by Ferrari/McLarengate. That could spill over because of the disruption over the winter months.”

The triple world champion believes that Hamilton may have either volunteered for, or been required to make, too many celebrity appearances over the winter and ended up with a schedule that amounted to a “world champion’s job without being world champion”. “That takes the edge off you,” the Scot said.

In the end, though, Stewart sees in Hamilton many of the qualities that typify the greats in the sport and he believes that the young Briton is well on his way to becoming one. “Of course there is a scar from Brazil and a scar from China,” Stewart said. “These things do happen. But they are part of the building blocks of experience and you don’t go straight from kindergarten to university, do you?”