Will the real Lewis Hamilton stand up? Reebok and its technical partners fooled everyone at an elaborate presentation of Hamilton as its new ambassador yesterday, first by showing us a life-size, talking and moving hologram of the McLaren Mercedes driver.

Apart from a little fuzziness around the edges, it was impossible to tell that the hologram, “filmed” two weeks ago, was not the real deal until Hamilton walked on stage and stood next to it, wearing identical gear.

The detail that gave the real Hamilton away was a bump on his lip, apparently sustained while kayaking in Switzerland at the weekend. As the human version took over from the make-believe driver, the hologram first reduced itself to a see-through body picked out in green fluorescent lines and then curled itself up like a genie and disappeared into the ether.

Hamilton is being paid £10million over five years for his latest endorsement, in addition to the £75million he is being paid by McLaren over the same period, confirming the 23-year-old's status as Britain's highest-paid sportsman. The deal means that Hamilton is going to be even busier than he is already, with the danger being that his focus on race driving is going to become ever more blurred. In return for its largesse, Reebok is demanding ten days of Hamilton's time each year, which will pile on top of the scores of promotional days that he is already committed to on behalf of McLaren's sponsors. He also has extensive commitments with the team.

The presentation also revealed many details of the young driver's training regime. We discovered, for example, that Hamilton occasionally suffers from chafing problems “in certain areas” when he is training, that he has never peed into his driving suit during a race, and that he believes that he is fitter than Jenson Button.

After mis-hearing a question from the floor, Hamilton also spoke for the second time this year about how he would like to get into acting and films at some stage in his career, and talked of his friendships with film stars such as Denzel Washington and Will Smith, and Naomi Campbell, the supermodel. “They are people I look up to,” he said. “And I am able to turn to them and get some advice from them because they are in the same sort of situation as me.”

After disappointing races in Canada and France, where Hamilton made errors that have left him ten points adrift of Felipe Massa, the championship leader, he was asked whether he felt he needed to “do an Andy Murray” and stage a fightback on the “Centre Court” of Silverstone, in the British Grand Prix this weekend.

“I'd say it's different. I don't believe I need to do an Andy Murray. He did a great job and I am very happy for him,” Hamilton said, in reference to the Scot's comeback win at Wimbledon over Richard Gasquet on Monday evening.

“For me, I've got ten races to build upon. We saw last year that the season is very long. We've had a great season up to now, even with the lows ... and I'm not going to put all the pressure on myself to try and do it all in one race.”

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