Your hands are shaking.

It's just before the race.

Angela Cullen fixes the earplugs and headphones before Lewis Hamilton climbs into his black painted Silver Arrow.

When her famous boss has taken his seat and the radio communication is working properly, she too takes a deep breath.

Angela Cullen soaks up the energy in the midst of the Formula 1 cars, the pilots, the mechanics, the spectators.

Moments full of humility, she describes: Every time she realizes how blessed she is.

Angela Cullen, 47 years old, born in New Zealand, is the strong woman at the side of the most successful driver in the history of the motorsport premier class. The other day, when she was allowed to get into the racing car with which Hamilton continued to prettify and improve his glamorous Texas record - five wins in eight races - this Sunday (9:00 p.m. CEST in the FAZ live ticker for Formula 1 and Sky) in Austin Wants to set course for world championship number eight. “But I can't look over the steering wheel,” she says. Hamilton laughs heartily, and Angela Cullen makes the winning sign.

As is usually the case on Grand Prix weekends, she wears a watch on both her left and right wrist.

A little mystery about Angela Cullen, who significantly shaped the Hamilton era.

She has been training and looking after the Briton since 2016.

"I am very happy that I found Angela," said Hamilton in Austin of the woman who belongs to the Formula 1 superstar's closest circle: "She is a very special person."

"Without her I would not have made it"

At the beginning of his career, which started at McLaren in 2007, he was given coaches who weren't really physiotherapists.

Over time, however, Hamilton also had ailments here and there.

"But I didn't have anyone who could fix it."

This is exactly what Angela Cullen does after the violent Hamilton crash in Monza with World Cup opponent and front runner Max Verstappen.

Acupuncture needles were also used.

"Without her I would not have made it," emphasized Hamilton at the time.

After the last race in Turkey, Monaco quickly went to the cold chamber for regeneration - at almost minus 100 degrees.

Angela Cullen, who is married but reveals practically nothing about her private life, is no stranger to extremes.

In 2006, for example, she went on a bike trip - a year in South America from Ushuaia in the very south to Colombia.

Her passion for sport and her predilection for mathematics and science at school led to her university degree in health sciences and physiotherapy.

She was part of the British gold relay team at the 2004 Athens Olympics over 4x100 meters.

At some point, I went back to Europe via New Zealand, in 2014 I made contact with Aki Hintsa, the Formula 1 fitness luminary who died in 2016 at the age of only 58 after suffering from cancer.

For the doctor, long-term performance was directly dependent on well-being.

Hintsa students have long been widespread in Formula 1, and Sebastian Vettel's trainer and physiotherapist Antti Kontsas also comes from the Hintsa forge.

For Angela Cullen there are again exciting moments in Austin.

The time before the start, the final preparations for the race, emotions on every lap up to the finish line.

And always in a good mood, as Hamilton once said about her.

No matter what time of day, she is always positive.

He once described her as "selfless" and "focused".

"I've been lucky enough to work with a lot of people." But Angela Cullen is the hardest working woman around him.