Lewis Hamilton should be an all-time British sporting great. What he’s achieved in Formula 1 is unlikely to be bettered by many, let alone a Brit in the near future, whilst off the track he’s revolutionised the sport’s fanbase and brought it to a far wider audience.
Why then am I, and many others, struggling to feel the same degree of emotion as I did when Jenson Button won his title in 2009 - or the levels felt throughout motorsport when Damon Hill took the 1996 crown? It’s simple. Hamilton is a divisive character in the extreme, and that’s something that looks set to define his legacy every bit as much as his achievements on the track. For a guy like myself with a mental age of about 57 there are quite a few of Hamilton’s traits that ‘just aren’t cricket’. The flashy jewellery, the fledgling music career, the celebrity lifestyle. It just doesn’t fit in with my perceived image of a professional racing driver. Add to that his all too often homogenised podium chat, and you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a guy programmed by a PR professional. Every track is ‘one that he just loves racing at’, every circuit is home to ‘the best fans on the planet’. The fact that his Stevenage accents takes on an American twang on a regular basis only further adds to his marmite image. Look beyond that however, and you’ll start to develop and understanding - and, if you’re like me, almost a degree of empathy - for his situation. One of the biggest parts of being a racing driver isn’t the driving of the car, it isn’t the painstaking sessions in the gym before every race weekend, it isn’t even the pages of complex data needed to be read and understood to extract the maximum performance. It’s the corporate side of things. Being quick isn’t enough to get most people to the pinnacle of motorsport. Having a budget is the key. That’s where Hamilton’s PR friendly image comes in. He’s a sponsors’ dream, and whilst describing the fanatical crowds in Shanghai or Austin as ‘the best in the world’ might seem like PR drivel to cynics like us, it might also convince fans there to go out and buy a Mercedes car. Or a Bose sound system. Or a Puma jacket. In the eyes of sponsors, Hamilton can become the world’s most expensive, quickest and most mobile billboard. His journey to F1 was an unusual one. Unlike many he didn’t come from a wealthy background, and certainly at first, he was destined to be the Golden boy of British sport. Ironically though the more successful he became, the more strongly people began to feel about him. Hop on to Twitter and you’ll see this in the response to any Sky Sports F1 tweet. People with #TeamLH in the username will instantly jump to his defence, and start shouting about conspiracies within the FIA or Mercedes, whilst people who are probably towards the, erm, more experienced end of the Twitter demographic will grumble about his attitude, where he lives and his lifestyle - all whilst pointing out that things were far better in the good ol’ days. It’s as clear an indication of what he’s done to the sport that you’ll need. He’s the first driver to enjoy (or endure, only he will know) near pop-star levels of support. He lives in a reality television world. A world where he took Usain Bolt out for hot-laps around COTA, and had Neymar live on his team radio to congratulate him on taking the title in Mexico City. If you can see behind this however, you’ll still get glimpses of a more conventional racing driver. It’s not always easy, and you really have to take more than a passing interest in the sport to identify it, but Lewis Hamilton the racer, not Lewis Hamilton, the brand, is still there. This is most evident when he’s sat in a genuinely comfortable surrounding, with people who he knows are genuine enthusiasts. No corporate suits. No sponsors to plug. No fanboys and girls to appease. No footballers pretending they know the difference between their MGU-K and their MGU-H. His appearance on Top Gear many moons ago was where I first noticed this, however as recently as this weekend it was evident when he sat down for a (quite fascinating) chat with Martin Brundle on Sky. Brundle and Hamilton looked comfortable together. His answers were genuinely interesting, his voice relaxed and more Stevenage than Seattle, and his whole persona was of a man who was at home. If you have the chance, and only know Hamilton as the British guy with the weird accent who delivers cliched soundbites, it might just change your opinion on him. Even if it’s just slightly. Of course that might also change your view on whether or not he’s the greatest F1 driver of all-time, or even just the Greatest British driver in history. Statistically he’s nearing Michael Schumacher’s record for the main crown, and now holds the second. Judging the sport on statistics is about as relevant as comparing Usain Bolt and Neymar on how far they can chuck a javelin though. Well, ok, maybe it’s not quite that irrelevant, but you know what I mean. Since debuting in 2007, Lewis has competed in 206 races. He has suffered just over 20 retirements in that time. In the 80s and 90s, Nigel Mansell started 187 GPs, and (according to my rough maths) retired in 81 of them. Put simply, Lewis retires roughly every 10.3 races. Nigel retired every 2.3 races. Ah, I hear you say, that shows that Lewis stays out of trouble, manages his car better. After all, Champions normally aren’t decided by who wins the most races, but by who has the best bad days. If I did hear you say that, then you don’t know very much about F1 from the 80s and early 90s... The further back you go, the less reliable the cars were (although I suspect that messers Vandoorne and Alonso may disagree with that ever so slightly…) - then there was the small fact of how physical they were, and, until Jackie Stewart got involved, the fact that F1 drivers were basically men strapped to fuel tanks driving round barrier (or tree) lined roads. Stewart himself, the man who Hamilton overtakes to become the king of British stats, won his three titles in just 99 starts, and suffered 36 retirements along the way. Of course that highlights another difficulty in crowning a ‘greatest driver of all time’. The number of races. On his way to winning the 1965 title, Jim Clark finished just seven races - winning six of them. This season we had 20 rounds, and next (as with 2016) there will be 21 races. Of course drivers will win more. So there is no sure-fire way to determine who the greatest F1 driver of all time is. Certainly not statistically, and that leaves it down to opinion. What makes a great driver? Results, obviously. Versatility? Adaptability? Bravery? Cunning? I could go on. Ironically the one way that Hamilton could convince his doubters of his skill would be to have a season or two in an uncompetitive car. Many consider the greatest test of a driver to be how he competes when he doesn’t have the best engine, the best chassis or the strongest team. One only has to look at a certain Alonso, Fernando, for more on that. Whatever happens in the future though, Hamilton isn’t going to win over everybody in the UK. You just have to glimpse into history for that. Afterall Jackie Stewart ruined the sport by making it too safe, Nigel Mansell was too dull to be a racing driver, and Jenson Button was too much of a playboy who never fully fulfilled his talent...
0 Comments
|
Archives
April 2020
CategoriesAuthorI'm Fraser, 22, Sons fan who is now living the dream of reporting on Dumbarton for the Lennox Herald. |