Lewis Hamilton may not have intended to be provocative, or to pick a fight with his old team-mate Jenson Button, but he has indisputably raised the stakes in their rivalry when the world championship starts in Melbourne on Sunday.

For many, Button may never have a greater chance of winning a second world title now that Hamilton is no longer racing in an identical McLaren after opting to seek a bold new adventure with Mercedes.

In the big picture, Hamilton seeks nothing less than greatness, he said last week.

Provocative: Lewis Hamilton has raised the stakes with his former team, and team-mate, by saying he isn;t looking at McLaren or Button next season

Yet surely an immediate mission will begin with his duel against Button and his old team McLaren, who groomed him for stardom from childhood?

'That doesn’t really excite me,' said Hamilton.

Instead, he wants to be judged against Fernando Alonso, and Sebastian Vettel, the winners of five of the past eight world championships. Most of all, he wants to be assessed against Alonso, a winner of 30 grands prix.

'The rivalry between me and Fernando excites me more [than with Button],' said Hamilton. 'He’s the guy I want to beat. You also want to beat Seb, as they are the ones with most titles. But Alonso’s the fastest driver I can see. He’s also one of the most experienced. Anyone would struggle to beat him.

'Trying to finish ahead of Alonso, in a Ferrari that is actually really competitive, is a  really nice challenge. And I do think the Ferrari is going to be quick  this year.'

Hamilton’s introduction to Alonso, at McLaren in his rookie season in 2007, was highly combustible.

Not exciting: The rivalry with Fernando Alonso excites Hamilton more than any potential rivalry with Button

After a series of acrimonious incidents, the Spaniard, already a double world champion, reacted to losing the uncivil war by instigating an FIA inquiry, accusing McLaren personnel of having possession of Ferrari data, that led to the British team being fined $100million.

Times move on — and Hamilton unapologetically nominates Alonso as  the driver of the modern generation, regardless of the fact Vettel has won the past three titles since Button was world  champion in 2009. Button will not publicly rise to the bait but will remember Hamilton’s dismissive opinion after three years as team-mates. Indeed, he was not slow to have a subtle dig at Hamilton before his departure for Melbourne last week.

‘I feel I’d like to end my career at McLaren,’ said Button, who was broadly advised three years ago that he risked driving his career into a cul-de-sac when he joined the team fashioned around Hamilton.

Nothing could have proved further from the truth. Button’s charm, self-deprecating humour and, most importantly, a ruthless racing brain, have brought him total admiration within the team’s workforce at their HQ in Woking, Surrey.

The edge: Damon Hill believes Fernando Alonso will win the title ahead of Sebastian Vettel

To witness his victory in atrocious conditions in the final race of last season in Brazil — his 15th victory — was to see the baton being passed from Hamilton to Button inside the team.

‘It’s the right place for me to be for the long term,’ said Button, 33. ‘Some people have left because they feel there is another challenge or something missing from their position.

‘There is still so much to achieve here. When we had the launch of our 2013 car, it was amazing to see cars representing 50 years of McLaren brought out; to look at the team’s  history and the championships won. We really are a spectacular team.

‘I want to add to that history; not just this year, but for the coming years.’ Button is at his most dangerous in Melbourne, having won three of the past four Australian Grands Prix, although where McLaren’s performance is in relation to Red Bull, Ferrari, Lotus, or, for that matter, Mercedes is a mystery — 12 days of inconclusive winter testing offered fluctuating evidence of the pecking order we can expect Down Under.

‘It’s been an extremely hard-to-read winter,’ said Button. ‘Varying fuel loads and levels of tyre degradation mean it’s hard to predict accurately who will arrive in Australia with the best-sorted car. But I love the place.’

Danger: Vettel is chasing his fourth World Championship

Hamilton has not taken a backward glance since he took the gamble last autumn of tying his future to  Mercedes in exchange for a three-year contract worth £60million, with the freedom for his management company, XIX Entertainment, to broaden his commercial portfolio.

‘It needs to be made clear that it was more lucrative [in salary] to stay with McLaren,’ insisted Hamilton.

His motivation in moving from McLaren, where he could expect to challenge for the championship this season, is governed by an ambition to replicate what Michael Schumacher achieved, year after year, with Ferrari and what Vettel is accomplishing with his dominance at Red Bull.  At McLaren, the hall of fame is inhabited by the ghost of Ayrton Senna.

At 28, Hamilton is arriving at his peak years with 21 victories already in a career that has never lacked controversy on the track, or off it. Perhaps he has never driven better than last year. ‘You want to be the one,’ he told a small gathering at the BRDC Clubhouse at Silverstone.

No 4: Max Chilton becomes the fourth British driver in F1

‘I was the one for a short period of time, as the youngest world champion, then I was toppled by Vettel. Fernando had his success. I expect myself to win.

'I expect myself to excel. Ultimately, I want to achieve greatness. I want to prove my abilities year after year. Michael is seen as an all-time great, Seb is, too. I want to be seen as great as well.’

In winter testing, Hamilton and Nico Rosberg have shown that Mercedes have made a startling improvement in performance after winning just one grand prix in the past three years.

‘I’m 100 per cent confident and happy with the decision that I made — and keeping myself out of trouble!’ said Hamilton.

‘The more time I spend at the factory the more excited I become. It’s just a beautiful place to be and I’m happier with the environment I’m in. I don’t have anything negative to say about McLaren — I was lucky to be given the opportunity by the team to get into Formula One.

‘Had I stayed I was guaranteed to be competitive.

'Yet I’m not looking to get one over McLaren. I know that I have gone to a team who have been unable to compete with the car I had last year — at some races, there was a deficit in qualifying of 1.9sec from Mercedes to McLaren — but we all have a hunger to change. I think  Mercedes will impress this year.’

Hamilton will be driven to prove that he was correct to free himself from McLaren, where the management structure made him feel  claustrophobic, to fulfil a search for ultimate greatness.

But with a nudge to his growing maturity, Hamilton said: ‘When  I look at it sensibly, I realise I have quite a lot of time left.’

During an interview with Oscar Pistorius in Pretoria last year, our conversation turned to how the South African’s prosthetic legs affected the way he runs. Pistorius had been training on the grass track at the city’s university and it was striking that he moved in an ungainly, fidgety way.

He shifted his weight from side to side when he was not running. Those £2,600 carbon-fibre blades defined him as one of the most iconic athletes on the planet, but they looked cumbersome; painful even.

Questions turned to how being a double amputee impacted on his training regime. How was he able to compete with rivals who were born with fibulae, the bones that connect your knees to your ankles?

Historic: Oscar Pistorius in Olympic action in London last year

Pistorius’s oft-repeated argument for his inclusion in able-bodied athletics was ‘there are tens of  thousands of people using the same prosthetics I use and there’s no-one running the same times’, but what made Pistorius different from the rest?

When asked what it would mean to become the first double amputee to run at the Olympic Games, a remarkable feat he duly achieved some five months later, it was clear he was irritated. Suddenly, the mild exterior of one of sport’s most famous faces clouded over. Pistorius became fractious and prickly.

‘It’s pretty similar to any other athlete,’ said Pistorius. ‘I think it’s a reward for any athlete, after years of training, to progress to a competition like that.’

In the spotlight: Pistorius leaves the Boschkop police station, east of Pretoria

He was not being modest, just evasive. Pistorius, after all, was not just ‘any athlete’. He redefined what it is to run fast. He challenged the traditional perception of what a sprinter looks like.

Inspirational is a word too often attached to athletes, but it is a description that accurately reflects what Pistorius has achieved on a 400metre track.

His parents took the decision to have his legs amputated below the knees when he was just 11 months old, yet he became a symbol of battling against adversity, recognised across the globe.

No fear: Pistorius poses for Sportsmail's Andy Hooper last year

The speed of Pistorius’s rise to prominence has only been beaten by the swiftness with which he has fallen since reports came in of the shooting in the early hours of  Thursday morning.

In 2007, the IAAF, athletics’ governing body, said Pistorius’s prosthesic limbs gave him an unfair advantage but he fought the ruling and saw it overturned the following year.

He did not just challenge legislation, however, he transcended athletics and certainly Para-athletics, testing ideas and dividing opinion about what is right and wrong and acceptable in competitive sport.

Happier times: Oscar Pistorius had been with girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp for a couple of months

Yet, despite the countless awards and myriad appearances on chat shows and glossy magazines around the world in his crusade to be seen as a role model, the Blade Runner’s brand continued to be underpinned by his achievements on the track.

His attempt to break the 45-second barrier was set to continue this season before yesterday’s events.  Pistorius had spent the last month training with British 400m runner Martyn Rooney in South Africa and was scheduled to contest two events in Australia in March.

He seemed calmer and more at ease than in the frenzied run-up to London 2012 but the burning desire to achieve, the drive that saw him lose 17kg in weight and change his body shape dramatically, remained.

Pistorius has never been afraid to set himself targets. He won three Paralympic gold medals in Beijing after failing to qualify for the Olympics and then told the world he would not miss out again in London. That he achieved that dream by reaching the semi-finals of the 400m is a testament to his self-belief and determination.

Seeing Pistorius swap race numbers with Kirani James, who eventually won 400m gold, after their semi-final provided one of the most touching moments of the Games, yet the South African’s participation was always going to be more significant than his performance.

It was not until the Paralympics that we saw the true sporting icon Pistorius had become. He was the poster boy of the Games; the good-looking South African plastered over adverts for Nike, Thierry Mugler, Oakley and BT in deals worth an estimated £3m a year, a figure that ranks him among athletics’ top earners.

When I visited him last February there was a copy of GQ magazine on the coffee table, heralding Pistorius as South Africa’s best-dressed man. The Blade Runner was the first and, possibly, only Paralympian whom many would have been able to name before the Games began. But then, suddenly, the halo slipped.

Pistorius lost his T44 200m crown to Alan Oliveira and claimed that the Brazilian’s blades were too long. His comments were not only ironic, given his continued insistence that blades did not give him an unfair advantage, but unsportsmanlike and deeply disrespectful. Yet, in the eyes of many, his outburst was the moment the Paralympics became relevant. This was elite sport we could relate to, argue over and dissect. And Pistorius was at the heart of it.

He comfortably retained his 400m crown and won another gold medal in the 4 x 100m relay, but he lost his 100m title in the stand-out race of the Paralympics. It was not Oscar’s name but that of 19-year-old Briton, Jonnie Peacock that was chanted by the sell-out crowd in the Olympic Stadium that evening.

Would there, though, have been a Jonnie without Oscar, the athlete Peacock has described as his ‘hero’? It was Pistorius’s extraordinary sporting story that seemed to make it possible for a teenager from Cambridge who contracted meningitis when he was five years old.

And now the remarkable narrative of a quite extraordinary athlete has taken the most unimaginable twist.

Sir Jackie Stewart has urged Lewis Hamilton not to get carried away with his own celebrity if he is to propel Mercedes forward this year.

Hamilton last week embarked on a new era in his Formula One career at Mercedes after six seasons with McLaren, a team he initially joined at the age of just 13.

There is no doubt Hamilton has taken a significant gamble, but the need to savour pastures new has been his driving force in signing up to the German manufacturing giant for the next three years.

In black and white: Lewis Hamilton must find the right balance to win titles, according to Sir Jackie Stewart

It is also almost certain Hamilton will enjoy greater freedom off track than was the case at McLaren, considering the emphasis placed on sponsorship commitments by the Woking-based marque on their drivers.

However, three-times champion Stewart feels Hamilton needs to make sure such liberty does not go to his head.

Hamilton can boast a pop-star girlfriend in Nicole Scherzinger and an array of friends from the music world, while there are suggestions he is planning on making his own music.

Bearing in mind Hamilton's desire to transform Mercedes into a winning team, Stewart is hoping the 28-year-old does not let his focus drift elsewhere.

New kid on the block: Hamilton ended his association with McLaren to join Mercedes on a three-year deal

Stewart said: 'Personally, if I'd been Lewis, I wouldn't have left McLaren. 'But as a 28-year-old, he should know what he is doing now.

'You just have to be damn careful you don't get carried away with your own importance, your own celebrity, or your own schedule outside of being in the cockpit. It can be quite intoxicating.

'What Lewis needs to do is have more consistently good drives, never mind the mechanical issues, and he shouldn't be distracted, something he should keep in the back of his mind.

'It's about who you hang out with, what you do in your off time, how you are committing your off time towards your real time - and your real time is being a racing driver.'

Famous faces: The British racer can boast a pop-star girlfriend in X Factor judge Nicole Scherzinger

Such efforts will be noticed by team principal Ross Brawn, who has been accustomed to working with one of the greats in seven-times champion Michael Schumacher.

Although the last three years failed to produce the results hoped for by Schumacher prior to stepping back into retirement, the German was renowned for his meticulous and methodical nature in working with his engineers.

Stewart added: 'The Ross Brawn factor is important. 'He knows how to do it, and Lewis will have to work with him and depend on him, and Lewis, in time, will have to deliver.

'Ross has worked with drivers who have really delivered. He worked with Schumacher from Benetton all the way through, and he knows how much Michael put in.

'Therefore he will think Lewis will have to put as much into that team, time-wise, commitment-wise, not just race-time wise, as Michael did.

That's going to be quite demanding, but there's no reason why he shouldn't go straight in and be competitive up front, not at all.'

With just one victory in the last three years, though, since Mercedes returned to F1, the pressure is on both Brawn and Hamilton to deliver.

'Daimler (Mercedes' parent company), are only interested in being up front and being the best,' said Stewart.

'If they're not going to be that, it's a five-minute decision for the Mercedes-Benz board to withdraw from motor racing if there's another recession and they're not selling cars. 'In that respect, they're slightly vulnerable.'

Lewis Hamilton's first official day as a Mercedes driver was overshadowed by infighting, denials and chaos that raise serious doubts over his supposed dream move.

That is the inescapable conclusion despite the insistence of team principal Ross Brawn that he will not be replaced by McLaren engineer Paddy Lowe, whose services are sought by Mercedes’ German paymasters.

Speaking at the team's British base in Brackley, Brawn said: 'Paddy's not  coming, no. If I choose to leave then Paddy will come. We have a fall-back plan. Simple as that.'

New leaf: Hamilton insists he isn't joining a team in turmoil

But it is not, because Brawn, a key incentive in Hamilton's decision to move to Mercedes from McLaren, is not his own boss.

Instead Niki Lauda, the brusque and bombastic  three-time world champion, is reviewing the team's operation at the behest of the Mercedes board in Stuttgart, where one victory in three seasons is seen as an inadequate return on their £500million investment.

To recap briefly: Lauda has just brought in as executive director Toto Wolff, a 41-year-old fellow Austrian previously destined to take charge of Williams.

Wolff, it seemed, had already agreed a deal with Lowe which would have seen him leave his £600,000-a-year job as technical director at McLaren to join  Williams, before making that Mercedes when he moved across.

Confident: Lewis Hamilton addressed the Mercedes staff on Thursday

This manoeuvring can only be interpreted as an attempted coup d'etat. Even if Brawn has won a reprieve in stalling Lowe's incursion, the suspicion among well-placed figures is that Wolff and Lauda, who jointly have a 40 per cent stake in the team, will finally axe one of grand prix  racing's greatest ever engineers.

Brawn was equivocal, even  contradictory, one moment  stating his expectation that he would stay, the next saying: 'There are a lot of new ingredients and they have to settle down. I want to wait to make sure they are working well.'

He was reserving the right to walk away but not inviting the eventuality. 'I am team principal,' he added. 'I am in charge of sporting, technical and racing matters. Toto's coming in to look after the commercial activities - something I don't want to  be involved in. Toto will be  doing a lot of things that are complementary.'

A lot, we note, not all. The sense of chaos is not helped by the fact that, despite all these goings on, Lauda has recently high-stepped from a holiday in Ibiza to a skiing trip in Kitzbuhel.

Staying put: Ross Brawn (left) isn't leaving Mercedes, claims Hamilton

Hamilton appeared unconcerned by the imbroglio. 'I texted Ross and he assured me of his commitment for the long term and that he is here to try to win with me,' he said. Hamilton conceded he was practically doing his career upside down, after starting with every advantage at his only previous team, McLaren.

The 2008 world champion said: 'I want an opportunity to show what I can do somewhere that has not had so much recent  success. I have to be here a long time to turn it into the most  successful team of its era. I saw the trophy cabinet, a small  cabinet on the right side of the corridor, and I want to fill that all the way along the corridor.

'You could say it is a gamble coming to Mercedes but I do not see it like that. I have one world championship already. Can I win another? Yes, if I have the right car.

'I don't plan to go on as long as Michael (Schumacher, who retired at 43) but as long as Mark Webber (who is 36) and Rubens Barrichello (whose last F1 race was in 2011, when he was 39).

'I am 28 and have a good 10 years left. It felt like the right decision when I decided to come here and it still feels like the right decision.' Leaving aside a little local  difficulty, that is.

Mercedes have been fined 10,000 euros (£8,000) for their unsafe release of Michael Schumacher during qualifying for the Korean Grand Prix.

The German, who will retire at the end of the season, came out of his garage during the final minutes of Q3 just as Lewis Hamilton was heading down the pitlane.

Punished: Michael Schumacher ventured out of the pitlane at an inopportune moment

The McLaren driver was forced to take rapid evasive action as Schumacher pulled into his path, narrowly avoiding a collision.

And having examined video evidence of the incident and heard from team representatives, Mercedes were found guilty of breaching article 23.12 of the FIA sporting regulations and fined.

Double trouble: Schumacher was also reprimanded for an incident in practise

Schumacher himself was reprimanded on Friday for impeding the HRTs of Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan during second practice.

The stewards also confirmed Karthikeyan will be able to start Sunday's race, despite failing to set a time during qualifying after a brake failure during Q1.

Vettel posted the fastest time on the first day of what will be eight days of testing at the Circuit de Catalunya - split into two blocks of four - before the curtain rises on the new season in Australia from March 16-18.

Completing 79 laps, the 24-year-old German was quickest in one minute 23.265secs, finishing 0.175secs up on Force India's Nico Hulkenberg and 0.325secs better than Lewis Hamilton in his McLaren, whilst Ferrari's Fernando Alonso was down in fifth with a time of 1:24.100.

Leading the field: Sebastian Vettel in action at the Circuit de Catalunya on Tuesday

Vettel said: 'It's difficult to judge where we are compared with the others right now.

'It's all based on feeling, and the feeling I have inside the car at the moment is fine.

'All in all, it was a good day.'

It proved to be a day of problems, however, for a number of other teams, spearheaded by the new Mercedes. After unveiling the W03 ahead of the test run, Michael Schumacher enjoyed a trouble-free morning run before encountering a hydraulic issue in the afternoon.

But after completing 51 laps, with his best a 1:23.150 for sixth on the timesheet, Schumacher said: 'My initial feelings with our new car are certainly good.

On top of the world: Reigning champion Vettel said he was happy with his new car

'I'm happy with the different evaluation we have done over the last week, but obviously with the rule changes, we won't know more until later.

'It's certainly an improvement and we have worked hard on the areas we had defined last year.

'Even though we had the hydraulic problem today, I'm pleased with all the mileage we have achieved so far with the new car.'

Lotus' Romain Grosjean, quickest of the 2012 cars in the first test in Jerez earlier this month, managed just seven laps. An unspecified fault with the latest chassis brought his day to a very premature end.

Back behind the wheel: Lewis Hamilton's McLaren trailed the Red Bull by 0.325secs in Barcelona

Following further investigation of the chassis, and the one used in the initial test in Jerez, the team made the decision to take no further part in this week's running in Barcelona.

Caterham's Heikki Kovalainen completed only 36 laps, with his best a 1:26.035 for the ninth quickest time, due to a rear track rod failure.

Kovalainen said: 'That obviously wasn't how we wanted day one here to go. But that's what testing is for - pushing everything to the limit to make sure we get rid of the problems before we get to the first race.'

Daniel Ricciardo at least made it through most of the day until a technical fault with his Toro Rosso curtailed his day with an hour to run. The Australian ultimately finished fourth fastest on the timesheet, with the best of his 76 laps being a 1:23.618.

Local hero: Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso was fifth fastest in his homeland

It was the same for Sauber's Sergio Perez who suffered a double dose of technical-related problems, one in the morning and another unrelated issue in the afternoon.

They restricted the Mexican to 66 laps and a best of 1:24.219 for seventh best on the day. Behind Perez, Williams' Bruno Senna managed a respectable 97 laps, but at this early stage the FW34 appears to be lacking pace as the Brazilian finished 1.5secs behind the Sauber.

With Kovalainen ninth and Grosjean 10th, that left Charles Pic in his debut test as a fully-fledged F1 driver to bring up the rear for Marussia. Marussia, however, are currently using last year's car before rolling out the new challenger for the final test in Barcelona starting on March 1.

With Marussia evaluating the new Pirelli tyres and practising pit stops, Pic ultimately finished almost five seconds behind Vettel, although he managed a day high of 121 laps.