FERRARI team manager Luca Baldisserri believes McLaren's Lewis Hamilton will have a tough season in F1 this year.

This will come largely from the banning of traction control, meaning several drivers, including Hamilton, will race in Formula One without it for the first time in their lives.

Hamilton enjoyed a superb rookie season last year, going on to finish second in the drivers championship, but Baldisserri expects the McLaren driver to have a tougher time without driving aids.

The Briton raced without traction control in GP2 in 2006, when he went on to clinch the title.

"I think that, with these new regulations, Lewis Hamilton may have a rough time," Baldisserri told Gazzetta dello Sport.

"For sure he won't be able to carry on driving the way he has, and even though he raced and won in GP2 without traction control, he was on different tyres."

While Ferrari's world champion Kimi Raikkonen will be able to bask in the glory being in car No 1, Hamilton, who was pipped by a solitary point at the wire last year, will be driving the new McLaren MP4-23 with No 23 on its nose, a grim reminder of his team's disqualification from last year's constructors' championship for cheating.

Hamilton will find himself operating from the end of the pitlane and paddock wuth the backmarkers at every circuit with, with half the garaging and motorhome space the team have become used to.

But Hamilton, who turned 23 yesterday, hopes to put last season behind him as he leads McLaren's challenge.

"Politics-wise (last year) was a disaster but that is the business, there is nothing you can do about it," said Hamilton who was with team-mate Heikki Kovalainen at the launch of the McLaren MP4-23, McLaren's car for the season, at Stuttgart yesterday.

"You won't see a season quite like it again but I hope next season is just as exciting without the politics. For me it's great, I'm almost seen as the leader of the team and hopefully I can do the job."

TRAUMA

And Britain's last world champion Damon Hill believes Hamilton can be the next British world champ.

Hill believes the trauma of losing at the death last season will have strengthened rather than weakened him.

"The fact that Lewis came so close to winning the championship in his rookie season will make him even more sure that he can win the title," said Hill.

"I think that if you put his performance last year into the context of F1 history, there can be little doubt that he will one day be world champion.

"Lewis, and his father, Anthony, have taken a totally positive view of what happened last year. They realise that Lewis began the year with no F1 experience and still almost won. That makes the Hamiltons, in my mind, very strong." - Wire Services.