RBS ambassador and three-time world champion Sir Jackie Stewart watched as Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg shared the podium in Australia – then claimed the young drivers had shown strategic skills beyond their years.
"Lewis Hamilton had a very good car and he drove it without error. He drove a very steady race and could have gone much faster, I think, but he had the intelligence not to over-drive. By so doing he got himself a very comfortable win in the first round of the championship. What you need to do is finish races. You know, there's a good saying: 'To finish first, first you must finish.' And he drove the race very carefully.
"He's certainly a wiser young man than he was last year. He knows more about the business than he did last year. But he's still incredibly young and relatively inexperienced. So what you have is someone with enormous talent, who's exercising it with McLaren, who are an extremely successful, experienced and well-engineered team. Very few young drivers get to be in the number one team, and it was demonstrated here that McLaren are a number one team. Lewis has a great chance for the driver's title this year.
"Nico Rosberg, who finished third for the Williams team, also drove a very consistent race. He's certainly a racing driver of the future – there's no doubt about that.
"Nakajima was unfortunate – he could have finished higher but had an accident close to the end of the race. But he still did finish in the points. So that was very good."
