McLaren have announced a five-year extension to their contract with star driver Lewis Hamilton. The new agreement, which starts for 2008, will run up to and including the 2012 season.

The announcement takes the length of McLaren’s relationship with Hamilton to a total of 15 years, believed to be among the longest running associations between a sportsman and a team in motorsport history.

"It’s fantastic for me that Vodafone McLaren Mercedes has extended my contract until 2012,” said Hamilton, runner-up in the 2007 drivers’ championship. “Whilst last year was my first year with the team in Formula One, I have been connected to McLaren and Mercedes-Benz since 1998 and feel that I could easily drive for this team for the whole of my Formula One career.”

Hamilton narrowly missed out on last year’s title after an amazing rookie season, which saw him take four Grand Prix victories. And while his new deal is almost certain to make him one of Formula One racing’s best paid drivers, the 23-year-old Briton insisted he is firmly focused on more success in the seasons ahead.

“I am with the right team to compete for race wins and both the drivers’ and constructors’ world championships in the future,” he added. “We will have a lot of challenges ahead, but I am 100 percent positive I am with the people to take them on.”

Announcing Hamilton’s new contract, McLaren team principal Ron Dennis said his driver had more than earned a pay rise: “Given Lewis’s performances over the course of the 2007 season, it is clear that improved financial terms were fully deserved and this formed part of the friendly negotiations with Lewis’s manager Anthony Hamilton.”

Following the departure of Fernando Alonso at the end of last season, Hamilton will race alongside former Renault racer Heikki Kovalainen in 2008. Both team and driver are confident it will prove to be a fruitful partnership.

“I am enjoying working closely with Heikki, Pedro (de la Rosa), Gary (Paffett) and the team as we push hard with the development of the MP4-23,” said Hamilton. “We have 57 days to go until the lights go out on the grid at Albert Park and we are motivated to make the most of this time and arrive in Melbourne with a competitive car."

McLaren’s Formula One CEO Martin Whitmarsh added: “Since Heikki joined the team in December, it has become more apparent how well he and Lewis will work together to become a competitive force for the team. We feel confident we have the prospect of another exciting season ahead."

Last Sunday was a special day for Jati Transport on officiating the new baby Benz that is the new C-Class flagship of Mercedes Benz cars. The Open Day was held at the Jati Transport Headquarters down in Beribi, Gadong. The C-Class premier started on Friday, June 30th and continued until Sunday for the Open Day.

That morning, I managed to do a round with the new Benz as well as the ML. While waiting for the queue, we were being served with refreshment of assortments of sandwiches and fried noodle. There were large flock of people visiting Jati, being the only Mercedes dealer in Brunei. Outside, there were all those Mercedes models from the new S500L to the facelifted E-Class flagship. What interested me the most was still the ML and the E-Class with its sequential gearbox and the gear change lever on the steering wheel.

Oh yeah, by the way, I got a goodie from the service centre, hmm... it is a towel. That is when I got my C-Class in for a free inspection by Mercedes engineers. What else would you feel when the receptionist told me that my car don't have any problem after two years of usage but then I need to replace the rear brake pad. Well, changing the front sport cross-drilled rotors and pads did left a big dent in the wallet.

Mercedes ML320 interior

The new S500L interior

Another interior shot of S500L

Door panelling gets new design

2007 C-Class tachometer

New real tailgates

ML320 CDI rear look

E280 Sport Package

E280 interior

Electronic seats adjustment

ML 320 CDI front look

SLK350 tachometer

SLK350 interior

Nice door handle

Red bucket seats

Sexy rear look

The Australian Grand Prix was a mix of good news and bad for Spyker. The bare statistics were a bit disappointing - both cars qualified at the back, Christijan Albers posted the first retirement of the 2007 season, and a twice-penalised Adrian Sutil finished last…

The good news, however, was that the Dutch team came away certain that the new F8-VII car has a lot of potential. It was reliable throughout the weekend and in the race Sutil set some very competitive times - just 0.2s away from the Super Aguris that qualified in midfield, and only 0.5s off Jenson Button’s Honda.

“We have a very positive feeling for the future,’ said team principal Colin Kolles after the race. “Extremely positive, to be honest. Our problem is qualifying, and we’re not getting temperature into the tyres, or at least on this track, so we were struggling for a competitive lap time on Saturday.

“But you just have to look at Adrian’s times in the race and compare them to other cars and you’ll see that he was quite competitive.”

Kimi Raikkonen put in a dominant performance on his Ferrari debut to win the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday. After starting from pole position, Raikkonen was never troubled by the chasing McLarens of Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, who completed the Albert Park podium.

Kimi won at Albert Park

BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld was the man on the move at the start, racing up to second ahead of Hamilton, who got the jump on Alonso. However, as the race progressed it became clear that no-one could live with the pace of the Ferrari and the McLarens.

Heidfeld eventually finished a distant fourth behind Hamilton, who put in impressive debut, matching world champion Alonso all afternoon, and staying ahead of the Spaniard until the second round of pit stops.

Giancarlo Fisichella was the leading Renault in fifth, the Italian just holding off the charging Ferrari of Felipe Massa, who charged through the field having started from the back of the grid following a late engine change.

Nico Rosberg drove strongly for Williams to come home seventh, ahead of the similarly-powered Toyota of Ralf Schumacher, who took the final point.