Lewis Larbalestier Hamilton honours his mother's name

Speaking at Expo 2020 in Dubai ahead of this week's season-opening race in Bahrain, the 37-year-old Briton said he was working on the change and hoped to make it soon.

"I'm really proud of my family's name 'Hamilton'," he explained. "Actually, none of you might know that my mum's name is Larbalestier.

"I'm just about to put that in my name because I don't really fully understand the whole idea when people get married then the woman loses her name. And my mum, I really want her name to continue on with the Hamilton name."

Hamilton's mother Carmen and father Anthony separated when he was two, she accompanied the Mercedes driver to Windsor Castle in December when he received his knighthood.

Hamilton reflected on the tough pre-season testing for his team in Bahrain, only days away from the season opener at the same venue.

"The testing’s been difficult," he revealed. "There were a lot of cars that were looking quite fast. The Alfa Romeo was looking fast, Valtteri [Bottas] was looking quick. Obviously the Red Bull looks ridiculously fast at the moment, and the Ferraris."

"But we are the best team," Hamilton added adamantly. "Undoubtedly."

"The testing was tough, but the great thing is, right now after this I have a conference call with all the guys in Brixworth [Mercedes High Performance Powertrains’ HQ in the UK], talking about the engine, the driveability, about how we can get more power out for this week," he explained.

"Then I have another conference call with all the engineers up in Brackley [Mercedes’ factory] and just [discussing] how we can push this car forward, how we can stop it from jumping, how we can extract all the performance from it. So everyone’s hyped, everyone’s excited.

"And these engineers, they love the challenge. So it’s good," Hamilton concluded.

The driver will be chasing a record eighth championship this year after losing out to Red Bull's Max Verstappen in Abu Dhabi on the last lap of a controversial last race of 2021.

He said on Monday that winning was not everything and "sometimes when you lose you actually win and grow, and my advice for people is: 'Don't be afraid of failure'."

Hamilton said during testing in Bahrain last week that Mercedes were behind Ferrari and Red Bull and his car, on current form, lacked the pace to be competing for wins.