Autoblog

McLaren has finally revealed their second driver for the upcoming 2007 Formula One season: Lewis Hamilton will be racing alongside world champion Fernando Alonso, who leaves Renault to join McLaren this season.

Hamilton has been a personal protégé of McLaren chief Ron Dennis since the young driver was thirteen. Lewis won the GP2 title this year, and in moving into the race seat skips right over the test-driver faze. Of course this means a disappointed Pedro de la Rosa will return to his role as test driver after having filled in for Juan Pablo Montoya this past season. The second implication is that the rumors of Mika Hakkinen's return to F1 in a McLaren for the 2007 season turn out not to be true.

There'll certainly be a lot of eyes on Lewis as he makes his landmark debut in F1 racing for a leading team. Nice work if you can get it.

[Source: GrandPrix.com]

Looks like Juan Pablo Montoya will be able to start preparing for his NASCAR debut sooner rather than later - Team McLaren Mercedes announced Tuesday that they have released Montoya for the rest of the 2006 F1 season, replacing him with test driver Pedro de la Rosa (shown above with JPM) for the French Grand Prix this weekend.

With current McLaren number one driver Kimi Raikkonen widely assumed to be going to Ferrari next year, de la Rosa will be hoping to turn his substitute drive into a full-time drive for 2007 alongside fellow Spaniard Fernando Alonso. McLaren is also likely to use the opportunity created by Montoya's early departure from the team to try out their other test driver, Gary Paffett. Another front-runner for either the #2 seat or a test driver spot at McLaren is young Lewis Hamilton, a Ron Dennis protege who is currently having an outstanding year in the GP2 championship series.

[Source: GrandPrix.com]