Meet the British future of F1
What British racing fans - and Formula One in particular - worry about is what will happen when Lewis Hamilton, now 33, calls it a day. The sport is lacking big personalities, star names, real pulling power for the neutral fan. It needs fresh blood.
Britain, once again, is set to provide the answers. In F1, 10 British drivers have shared 17 world championships - more, on both counts, than any other nation. Yet even by the high, historic standards of this country, the crop of young drivers coming through is exceptionally rich.
Three of the biggest teams - McLaren, Red Bull, and world champions Mercedes - have British talent on the verge of breaking into the main event.
Now Sportsmail can introduce you to F1's next generation...
Lewis Hamilton is now 33 but there are other British drivers coming through the ranks in F1
LANDO NORRIS - McLAREN
F1 is quite boring. It's hard to see how it pulls in fans
Mid-season testing is usually just a chance for teams to make minor tweaks ahead of the second half of the campaign. In August 2017, however, the Hungaroring saw a drive which made the racing world sit up and take notice.
Seventeen-year-old Lando Norris set the second fastest lap on the second day in a McLaren that was so uncompetitive last season, even with Fernando Alonso behind the wheel.
Norris was a junior driver at the time. He was promptly promoted to reserve driver for the 2018 campaign. Not bad for a teenager from Glastonbury who was never that interested in F1 growing up.
Seventeen-year-old Lando Norris has been promoted to reserve driver at McLaren this season
Norris's first love was Moto GP - he supported Valentino Rossi - before falling for F1
'My dad wanted to do (F1), but couldn't afford it, so he went into cycling,' the now 18-year-old said at McLaren's headquarters, a space-age facility amid the inauspicious surroundings of Woking.
'I enjoyed watching Moto GP, supported Valentino Rossi, I was never really into F1. Then my dad took me and my brother to our local karting track to watch the British Championships, it was then I said I wanted to have a go.
'It started much more as a hobby, but when I was 12, 13, I realised this is what I want to do, I really enjoy doing this.'
An almost outsider's perspective, therefore, allows Norris to be very frank when asked about the current state of his sport as an entertainment spectacle.
'The racing is quite boring, sometimes. It's hard to see how it pulls in fans. The races compared to other categories are sometimes a lot worse, they should always be better.
'I don't really know how to fix it; maybe have a load of power and no downforce, but I'm sure they will have a way. It's better than it was, but not where it should be as the top form of racing'.
Norris enjoys one of the perks of being at McLaren on a day at the Daytona track in Florida
Norris knows all about the racing tiers below F1, having surged through them at a rapid rate, all the way up to the F3 European championship, which shadows the big event across the Grands Prix on the Continent, and whose previous winners include current F1 stars Esteban Ocon and Lance Stroll - and Norris, in his debut season of 2017.
Despite his own considerable achievements and the expectation from the racing world, Norris still sees himself as having a long way to go.
'I'm definitely not there yet, maybe I can be fast over one lap, but (I need to be) able to do that every season and every race, and have the consistency of someone like Fernando or Lewis.
'I could be good in a qualifying round, but those guys have it all the time.. Sometimes those things come with time, but I have to work out how to be on top of that.'
What of the comparisons with Hamilton, who like Norris came through the programme at McLaren, and with it talk that he is an F1 champion in waiting?
'It gives a bit of motivation, not a huge amount,' he insists. 'If I can continue, maybe I can do the same, but I don't really try to dwell on what everyone else says.
'I do it for the enjoyment, and hopefully if I'm good enough I can make a career out of it.'
DAN TICKTUM - RED BULL
Getting banned helped me become a man - but I'm not a racing robot
Red Bull's junior programme has produced a rich vein of F1 talent - Max Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo, four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel.
The leading member of the programme, the reigning champion of the Macau Grand Prix, arguably the most prestigious single race on the junior circuit, is an 18-year-old from London, Dan Ticktum.
However, Ticktum's name, at a young age, already has a shadow over it, one he readily admits was entirely of his own making.
In 2015, racing in the MSA Formula series, Ticktum was involved in a first-lap collision with a rival while racing at Silverstone, leaving him at the back of the grid. Ignoring a litany of yellow flags, safety-car boards and other warnings, he overtook 10 cars and deliberately crashed into his foe in an act of petty revenge.
Dan Ticktum has already made a big name for himself in racing, and not only for his speed
He was banned for two years - the second later suspended - with the Motor Sports Association calling it a 'disturbing and dangerous episode', with Ticktum labelled 'totally irresponsible and reprehensible in the extreme'.
Ticktum totally accepts he was in the wrong. A bright, brash, confident young man, the only moment in our interview when he was on the back foot came when discussing the incident.
'It has been a steep learning curve - in a way, it has helped me become a man, getting up and looking in the mirror every day when I was banned,' he said.
'I had a chat with my dad, and he said it can be good for me, and I think it has, I have matured a lot more since. Hopefully it's the lowest point in my career, so my lowest point is behind me.'
Ticktum had no racing background in his family at all, but was taken to Eastbourne for karting when was a kid. He broke the track record aged seven, and went from there.
It is in karting, he says, where the root of Britain's explosion of young talent can be found.
'The karting championship I won in 2011 was the hardest title I ever won,' he said. 'We are ahead of some nations in terms of what people know, in the technology and expertise we have. We are quite an intelligent nation - me, Lando, George (Russell, of Mercedes), we are all smart guys. More mental capacity can really help in racing.'
Ticktum is finding new responsibility at Red Bull after causing a deliberate crash in 2015
While Norris and Russell are more reserved in talking about their chances and contemporaries, Ticktum is a little more playful.
'I respect them massively, George and Lando are the best young drivers in the world with (Sauber's French racer Charles) Leclerc. But I know their weaknesses.'
Ticktum has his idols in F1. He describes his driving style as 'very Verstappen-y', and admires James Hunt and Ayrton Senna, two of the sport's great attackers. He is not shy in defending F1's current biggest star, either
'Hamilton is brilliant, he should be massively respected. I think we are quite similar in many ways, in that we both like many things - music, clothes, although him more than me on that one. We are not just racing robots.
'If you come from Stevenage, and are a self-made champion like he is, then you should be able to drive around in a great big sports car and do what you want. He has earned it.'
Ticktum insists F1 needs more drivers with personality, and likens himself to Max Verstappen
Any step up at Red Bull will test Ticktum's new found responsibility and ability, and for the time being his role at the team will mostly see him stay at base, working on the simulator - but, he says, hopefully not for long.
'I'm the next one up for Red Bull, though this season it's going to be more about race support. But I have to prepare for the eventuality that I may be chucked into an F1 car at short notice.
'I just take everything as it comes. Obviously there is pressure from the Red Bull programme, but when I'm out there on the grid, waiting for the lights, I just think what will be will be. I am a bit nervous, but I don't think I will struggle.
'It seems like a good time for me to come into F1. It is a bit boring, you look at how Bernie (Ecclestone) was in control for so many years, and it became all about tyre pressure and those things. But a lot has to come from the drivers. Some of them are a bit robotic, there needs to be more personality. F1 should be more about the drivers.'
GEORGE RUSSELL - MERCEDES
Pressure? Not at all. It's not a question of whether I am good enough
George Russell was always going to be a racing driver. The 20-year-old from King's Lynn, who races in Mercedes' junior programme and appeared in first practice at the Brazil and Abu Dhabi Grands Prix last season, had little choice in the matter.
George Russell is coming through the ranks at Mercedes, Hamilton's current team
'I have a brother who is 12 years older than me, Benji, and he used to do go-karting from the age of 11, so ever since I was born, I grew up on the racetrack. I started racing at eight, slowly worked my way up through the ranks, and here we are.
'I wouldn't say it was not a normal upbringing, but a lot of weekends, kids go to birthday parties, play football or whatever, and if you are going off racing, you miss out on that social group you have at school, and that goes for all of the drivers.'
Russell is another whose talent has fast-tracked him through the youth levels at an impressive clip. In 2014 he was the youngest ever winner of the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award, which recognises the pre-eminent young British driver that year. Norris and Ticktum are also former winners.
His rise peaked at the end of last F1 season, when Mercedes agreed for him to take part in two practice sessions with Force India.
He said: 'My whole career I have gone through the ranks quite young, at all levels I was the youngest driver, same at F4, F3, working with much older engineers, working with much older drivers. Age is just a number.'
What are his aims for this season? 'To go and win the Formula 2 championship, I've got to focus on my job there.'
What about F1? 'It is purely going to be based on performance, as it was last season. We won the championship with a round to go, the opportunity was there.
'I want to get ready for F1, but F2 is our main focus, and if I don't perform the opportunity won't be there.'
Russell echoes Ticktum in believing that the incredibly strong British karting scheme is the root for talent like him coming through.
At Mercedes, Russell has followed team-mate Hamilton more closely than any other young racer - but he does not want to be joined at the hip, or made to follow his footsteps.
Of Hamilton, he says: 'Any British driver in junior series is trying to follow Lewis, his career has been so incredible so that is 100 per cent my aim, but I just have to keep on performing. This year, new goals, new targets, and if I don't succeed, then last year is forgotten about. You're as good as your last race.'
The King's Lynn-born racer says driving a F1 car feels 'natural', despite its phenomenal power
Russell pictured chatting with Mercedes chief and former world champion Niki Lauda
It might seem as if Russell is under pressure, given the need to match what he has managed already - the same applying to the other two racers too. Russell's answer, however, speaks for all three.
'Pressure? Not at all. I have never been thrown in at the deep end, the guys at Mercedes believe in me, so it's not a question of whether I am good enough, it's more them trying to extract the best of me.
'Obviously an F1 car is incredible to drive, it was like nothing I had experienced before, but when I got in there, it felt natural, like it was where I was meant to be.'