It makes a change to find you’re creating the news rather than reporting it. The BBC’s takeover of all Formula One broadcasting, starting next year, surprised everyone in the paddock, not least the stunned 40-strong crew from ITV.

I’ve no more of an idea than anyone else about what will happen next, but that did not prevent the questions coming our way.

For now, though, the BBC Radio 5 Live team have been focussing on this weekend and the second round of the championship. There has hardly been time for everyone to catch their breath after the Destruction Derby in Melbourne last Sunday when only six of the 22 starters were still running at the finish.

Having a damaged car at the end of the first round is a worst-case scenario for the teams, particularly when the wreckage has to be shovelled into a box and flown straight to Malaysia. This comes at a time when the manufacture of spare parts back at base has not yet got into its stride thanks to the need to build two new cars for Australia and incorporate modifications from lessons learned during testing. It was a particular disaster for the Super Aguri team. Having only received the financial green light two and a half weeks before Australia, the two cars we saw on the track in Melbourne amounted to all they had. If Takuma Sato or Anthony Davidson wiped off a nose, that was it: no point in returning to the pits for a new one because none existed.

In the sapping heat here at Sepang, as the ambient temperature tripped over 30 deg and humidity reached 77 per cent today, the coolest man in the place has been Lewis Hamilton. Thursday is set aside for interviews, a carefully managed 30 minutes split between sessions for the International media, agencies and the British press, followed by TV crews who, poor souls, have to suffer from wilting hair-dos while waiting in the furnace heat outside the air conditioned McLaren office.

The good thing about these so-called flyaway races is that the teams do not have their luxury mobile headquarters in which to hide away. We gathered in the McLaren office (basically a smart Portacabin) to find Lewis sitting in a corner chatting about DTM and sportscar racing with McLaren’s test driver, Gary Paffett and Neil Oatley, the team’s quiet engineering genius who is making a rare visit to a race.

Lewis ambled over and looked totally relaxed as he sipped a bottle of water and reflected on such an outstanding start to the season. ‘I enjoyed everything about last weekend,’ said Hamilton. ‘Everything panned out perfectly; the way the car felt, the way the team worked, how my training had paid off.’ You could say that again. Did you see the way he bounded up the steps to the podium like a five-year old? And this after an hour and 29 minutes with cockpit temperatures somewhere between 40 and 50 degrees. ‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘I know it’s going to be even hotter here. And now I know I can cope. No problem.’ In other words, bring it on!

Keep up to speed at your leisure as BBC 5 Live Sports Extra covers every session tomorrow, starting at 2am GMT. You up for it? Lewis Hamilton is…