Opinion | Why Lewis Hamilton's new-found maturity should benefit him and Mercedes

Ask a relationship counsellor what the secret to a good marriage is, and a top answer will be trust. As the Formula One family gathers in Canada, all eyes will be on Lewis Hamilton and his racing partner, Mercedes.

The relationship between Hamilton and his team have not always been the most harmonious, and Monaco last time out was certainly a rocky moment.

After bossing the whole weekend in the principality, he was within touching distance of the chequered flag. When the safety car came out after Max Verstappen's crash he was brought in to the pits for a routine stop. Or so it seemed. As he came out he tucked in behind Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel. No one could quite believe what had happened - the first instinct was to think there was some mistake.

There was, but it wasn't our eyes that were deceiving us, rather the team's data. Mercedes had got it horribly wrong. "We've lost this, haven't we?" was Hamilton's incredulous radio message. He probably couldn't believe that those tech titans were human after all. The radio response: "I'm sorry about that Lewis", probably didn't console him much. The fascinating thing was how he responded. It showed how much he has matured as a person and as a driver over the last 12 months.

Once the race was over, he reflected on his misfortune while gazing out to sea. Back in the pits, he knocked over his third-place sign on parking. But he showed remarkable sangfroid - in public at least - once the podium "celebrations" were over.

"We win as a team, we lose as a team," he said. Rewind to last year's race in the principality, where Rosberg's shenanigans in qualifying had denied him a shot at pole position.

The red mist descended then, and both team and the public were left in no doubt over his feelings. The fallout was just one of several in the first half of 2014 as he and Nico Rosberg struggled for supremacy.