Scot who fuelled Lewis' title winposted in F122 | 05 | 2014

LEWIS HAMILTON ARRIVED in Monaco this week for Sunday's grand prix leading the Formula One world championship. Timely then that the Scots chef who fed him on him on his way to the 2008 title, Jonathan MacDonald (pictured), has opened a new restaurant in Glasgow.

The former McLaren F1 head chef now leads his own team at the Ox and Finch in Sauchiehall Street, but he has lasting memories of helping Hamilton hide from the prying eyes of the media on his charge to the 2008 world championship.

"Lewis was a great guy to work with," MacDonald, who was with the team from 2005 to 2010, explained. "He's a similar age to me as well: I think I was the youngest person in the team at one point, so I always got on quite well with him. We used to chat about the pressure he was under: the demands of the media, that sort of stuff.

"Of course, even in the motorhome and the paddock, the drivers were always being watched by TV and press cameras, and quite often they'd come into the kitchen just to get away from all the prying eyes.

"Lewis, certainly in his first couple of years, always used to hang out in the kitchen: it was probably the only place he could find which didn't have a camera clicking. He'd often just come in and have a good chat with us: he was always good craic."

And MacDonald has strong — if, perhaps ever-so slightly hazy — memories of the celebrations which followed Hamilton's dramatic last-corner charge to the 2008 world title in Brazil.

"The celebrations after 2008 were a lot of fun … and went on for some time," MacDonald remembered. "Brazil is quite a party place anyway, but after winning your first world championship, especially under those final corner conditions, well that was the stuff of dreams. It was fantastic to be part of it."

Partying and celebrating an F1 world championship in Sao Paulo must have seemed a million miles away when, the day after his 16th birthday, he started his first job in the kitchen of a restaurant on Glasgow's West Nile Street.

"I applied for the job just before I turned 16 and started the day after my birthday, and I've been working with food ever since," he explained.

"I worked there initially on Saturdays when I was at school and it all just kinda grew from there. So my initial cooking training was on the job, rather than official qualifications."

Three years at Strathclyde University, studying hotel and hospitality, duly followed and five years after entering his first kitchen, as a 21-year-old he joined McLaren F1.

"It was a real coup to get the job," MacDonald smiled. "When I started, the drivers were Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya: Lewis obviously joined later, for the 2007 season.

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"A lot of people think the drivers must be fussy eaters, but the reality is they're all quite strict in relation to what they eat, and everything's overseen by their trainers and nutritionists, so there was never really anything difficult to prepare for them. They have very strict diets.

"They all had their own quirks and personalities though. Kimi would just come in and ask for a sandwich: that was about as much as you ever got out of him. Montoya was a bit of a joker.

"Generally all the drivers were quite appreciative of what you were doing for them: they realised the difficult conditions we were working in."

There's no denying the kitchens, certainly in the first few years in which MacDonald was cooking for the team, weren't a patch on the quality or size he has at his disposal at the Ox and Finch.

And don't think he had only to cook for the drivers: oh no. The list was significantly longer than that.

"In addition to the drivers, we had to cater for the team, and that could extend to more than 100 people — from the IT guys, to the mechanics, to the marketing people, to the truck drivers — we'd feed all of them.

"Then there were always members of the press, then senior management both from the team and our major sponsors, plus hospitality guests. Fair to say we had a very broad spectrum of things to cook."

And MacDonald — who is concentrating on a 'contemporary and relaxed dining experience' at his 70-cover Ox and Finch, which also can seat an additional 10 diners informally along the bar, and has a private dining area for 14 people — is able to source all his products from leading local suppliers, rather than face some of the problems he did in F1.

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"Sourcing the correct, fresh ingredients was the biggest challenge during my F1 career," he laughed. "It was never too bad at the European races, but tough for some of the flyaway races, especially in Shanghai and Kuala Lumpar.

"There were also the odd times when we had to smuggle things like frozen bacon into countries and circuits for the team's breakfast.

"The other big challenge was simply the volume of people you had to feed from what was always a relatively small space.

In terms of international flyaway races, it kinda changed a lot.

"In the early days, when you went to older circuits like Melbourne and Japan, they were a bit of a challenge, but they're improved significantly in recent years to move closer to the standard of some of the newer ones.

"When I first started, they were pretty basic. The first time I went to Albert Park in Melbourne I was just behind a partition at the back of the garage: it was that basic. A couple of trestle tables at the back of the garage and a wee two-burner stove was all I had on which to cook all the team's food.

"You weren't supposed to have BBQs in the paddock either — which seemed strange for Australia — but they were a bit funny about it. So you had sneak behind the containers and BBQ the team's dinner and stuff."

This weekend though, as Hamilton bids to win the Monaco Grand Prix to rack up his fifth success race win this season and extend his lead in the drivers' championship, MacDonald will be at work in his Ox and Finch kitchen.

"I don't see as much Formula One as I'd like now, simply because I don't have the time," he explained, "but it would definitely be good to see Lewis go on and win the world championship again this year. It'd give me a good excuse to have another party!"

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Jim McGill