The most hated man in Formula 1
Lewis Hamilton: Formula 1’s most successful rookie, 2007 championship runner-up, five times Grand Prix winner. And the most hated man in Formula 1.
From the banners at the Spanish Grand Prix, to the streams of abuse on internet forums, the crop of hate websites that have sprung up and even the series of anti-Hamilton Youtube videos, the British driver has taken over Michael Schumacher’s mantle as the man who is liked and loathed in roughly equal measure.
Why is that?
Popular is uncool
Hamilton may be hated, but he is also very popular. Taking Britain as an example, F1 fans today can be broadly divided between those who have followed the sport for years, like myself, and those who’ve been drawn to it recently by the popularity of Hamilton.
According to ITV, their F1 broadcasts were watched by 40% more people last year because of Hamilton, so we’re talking about a significant number of newcomers to the sport.
Now I like F1 a lot (you may have noticed) and I’ve got nothing against Hamilton, but even I find the saturation coverage of Hamilton a lot to take.
And I think a lot of other people react negatively against the fawning, sycophantic tripe written about Hamilton, and don’t like him as a result.
‘Twas ever thus, of course. Before Hamilton the British media’s darling was Jenson Button, and it was pretty clear from the debate we had about Button earlier this week how his over-exposure earlier in his career had coloured people’s opinions of him.
With Hamilton, there were some insinuations last year that his value to the sport made the governing body reluctant to punish him, which no doubt deepened the growing dislike.
Insincerity
There is a perception that Hamilton has a false media persona. A typical example of which was be that painful interview with Heikki Kovalainen ITV broadcast before the start of the Australian Grand Prix, with all that unconvincing chummyness. It brought back memories of the photo calls with Fernando Alonso last year when the two plainly weren’t getting on.
Hamming it up is one thing, but Hamilton’s not shy to use the media for his own ends either. His frustration at the team’s strategy in the Monaco Grand Prix last year, which he felt cost him the chance of beating Alonso, bubbled to the surface in his now notorious words: “it says number two on my car and I’m the number two driver.”
This, his critics say, is the real Hamilton: sweetness and light until something goes wrong - and then he bares his teeth.
The Fernando Alonso factor
It should have been a perfect match. Experienced, confident, double champion meets paired with the rookie to whom everything is new. Alonso does the winning, Hamilton does the learning.
But it became clear things were not going to work that way as early as the first qualifying session of the season, when Alonso reacted to Hamilton’s speed in Q2 by choosing to do an extra lap to guarantee himself first choice on strategy.
As we all know all hell broke loose between the pair in 2007. There are essentially two competing explanations for why that happened:
(a) Hamilton was so quick it rattled Alonso, leading him to demand preferential treatment from McLaren and, when he didn’t get it, blasted the team in his home press. He leapt at the opportunity to blackmail Ron Dennis when the spy scandal blew up. Alonso’s fans sympathised with their hero’s plight, believe everything he said, and hate Hamilton as a result.
(b) McLaren misled Alonso over whether he’d be the number one driver in 2008, and then undermined his efforts to win the world championship. Ron Dennis lied and claimed Alonso threatened to blackmail him over the spygate affair after Alonso had been double-crossed by Hamilton in qualifying at Hungary.
What do I think? As with most things I think the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes - although not halfway between.
Hamilton is no angel. What he did at Hungary last year was clearly an attempt to provoke Alonso. But the idea that McLaren would bring a double world champion into the team specifically to compromise his ability to win the championship defies logic, common sense and history. Even Pat Symonds of Alonso’s beloved Renault team acknowledged Alonso could not stand being beaten by a team mate even if Giancarlo Fisichella only managed it once or twice.
I don’t think there’s any doubt Hamilton’s catastrophic relationship with Alonso is the largest cause of the widespread hatred of Hamilton - whichever explanation for it you agree with.
Incomprehension
Fernando Alonso brought legions of new fans to the sport in Spain. You only have to look how packed the Circuit de Cataluya has been in recent years compared to the late 1990s to see that.
Inevitably, many of those fans may have little or no knowledge of F1 prior to about 2005. As far as they are concerned, Alonso is number one - this is the man that beat Michael Schumacher, after all.
Many have reasoned that it is simply not possible Alonso could have been beaten by a rookie, and as Hamilton is a British driver in a British team they suspected a conspiracy.
Racism?
No. I honestly don’t think racism has anything to do with it.
I know many of you disagreed with me when I said I supported the FIA’s anti-racism campaign. I still think it’s the right thing to do.
But I do think the racism that was displayed at the Circuit de Catalunya in testing in February (and may have been seen at the Chinese Grand Prix last year) was intended as an expression of hatred towards Lewis Hamilton the person and not his race. That does not excuse it, of course.
Over to you
Do you agree Lewis Hamilton is the most hated driver in Formula 1? What has he done to provoke it? Is it deserved or undeserved?
If you’d like to dip into the stack of articles that touched on this subject last year - which provoked pages of debate - here are a few places to start:
- Alonso is not the victim of a McLaren conspiracy
- Some drivers are more equal than others
- Alonso and Hamilton want split
- The stewards’ full verdict on McLaren & Alonso
- British tabloids blame Alonso
- When did the Hamilton backlash start?
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I may knock ITV for their poor coverage (oh and I do!), and I can see that this must reflect on Lewis, but I like to think I’m smart enough to not pin that factor onto Lewis himself.
At the end of the day, each and every driver has had to be hard nosed and selfish to get into the highest level of motorsport so it’s no surprise that by the time they get there, they’re not all the most friendly people in the world. It’s cut throat out there and that famous line of ‘nice guys don’t finish first’ that has plagued a number of top British drivers over the last 20 years. You can’t blame Lewis if he plays the part to show harmony in a team, regardless of whether it exists.
I loved to hate Schumacher because of his on-track antics but the nearest that Lewis has come to that is a handful of minor start-line-chopping accusations and not letting Alonso lead in qualifying for the Hungarian GP last year.
I imagine it’s a case of a few people with their noses out of joint because Lewis has come into a top team immediately and become a sensation. Reading his (not all that great) book, he’s had this all his life when competitors pinned his success on the McLaren Mercedes contract he had in his back pocket.
There’s a lot of pretty hostile anti-Coulthard stuff out there, but it’s of a different nature as it doesn’t have the backlash against media hype aspect to it. I don’t think anyone else on the grid comes close to those two, though.
I don’t like Hamilton any more because of the media overexposure and his unnecesary attempt to cash in by books etc. Before he een completed his first season in F1 abook with his pretty face in the cover was out.
All the repetitve media BS talk about how he has been preparing for F1 all his life about how focused he is and then crashes his car in the pit entry, about how perfect things are inhis life etc makes him boring to a degree that makes even Kimi’s press conferences interesting.
Just think of the hoopla there will be with the first female F1 driver!
If Hamilton weren’t black, would the FIA still be having an anti-racism campaign? No.
I can’t like a person who is dishonest: Moving to Switzerland for privacy rather than taxes lie, etc.
Part of the reason Lewis is unpopular is because of his self-confidence, which is standard issue with all racing drivers.
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Where other British drivers have been older and wiser enough to play it cool, like Damon Hill or - to a certain extent - DC; Lewis hasn’t been shy about telling us how good he thinks he is. I think that gets a lot of people’s backs up.
I feel that its very easy to confuse resentment of our (the UK’s) grotesquely Hamilton slanted F1 coverage with hatred of Hamilton himself.
Speaking as someone who feels a great deal of the former, I find it frustrating when people who have sipped the Hamilton kool-aid dismiss entirely valid criticism of media coverage as mere Hamilton bashing.
Of course, I would never claim to be completely immune from said confusion myself. As ITV move into their second hour of Hamilton Basking on a Sunday afternoon it becomes entirely too easy to take pot shots at him, despite the fact that my frustration is in fact not at Hamilton himself, but his portrayal.
I DISLIKE him….hate is too strong a word
Main reasons……
1 -ITV protray LH as some kind of niave angel who has brought new life to the sport….was OK the first time they said it, and the rookie did good…niave no
2 - ITV’s insistence on having his father talk on his behalf…ok maybe a manager or whatever, but please he has a voice and an ability to talk for himself….not his fault I know but it is a Motorsport show, and it gets right up my nose, a lower profiled driver interview would be better
3 - The Lies - By this I mean the reasons given for leaving England….(press) LOL, How silly did he think his fans where..THE MAIN REASON, shows complete disregard for English fans
4 - The Alonso/Hamilton relationship, I am a fan of neither, but a truly great spporting personality is someone who can work with anyone, and this goes for the 2 of them. Spoilt Brats should have made more effort to make it work
5 -He spoke out about Mr Mosely saying he should be setting a good example for young people, the same weekend as he was fined for speeding in France
I dont like to judge any driver on a personal level, but Keith you are right, the media coverage has put me right off LH, but I do not hate him…Just feel to urge to switch channels when ITV rant on about him…..what about other ‘Home nation’ drivers
RACE DOESNT COME INTO IT!
I don’t like him because he says the word "cool" and he’s 23 years old.
I started disliking Hamilton when he said "I tricked Massa into out-braking himself" in Malaysia ‘07.
I suspect he believed the hype he’d heard on ITV.
Well as a Canadian, I dislike Hamilton mostly because I’m stuck with ITV’s constant worshiping of the ground he walks on. To take the recent China event in particular, rather than talking about the events on track we were treated to Martin Brundle spending a couple of laps muttering about how he’d like to string Alonso up for engineering a collision with our hero.
Is Hamilton good? Unquestionably.
Is he entertaining? Yes.
Is he the next Nigel Mansell, or is he merely another Couthard/Button/fill-in-blank-here? Well, that remains to be seen, but please let him get a few more seasons under his belt before we canonize him.
This article sheds the light on a very important issue,namely the weapons of mass distraction.Media are forming opinions and do not leave it up to the audience/spectator/fan to form his/her own opinion.
For Lewis Hamilton,I only disliked his driving style behind the safety car last year at the GP of Japan.And i liked the episode with Jeremy on Top Gear.Other than that…no complain!
I dislike him because he seems to feel the need to continuously remind us about how humble he is. He’s always telling us how he "couldn’t have done it without the team" etc. If you ask me, if someone needs to keep pointing this out then they are the opposite of humble, but refuse to admit it. Personally, I think that’s worse than just being arrogant.
I don’t like Hamilton either, mainly due to him starting to believe the hype like a certain Jenson Button also did. He is of course much better than Button, whether he is a real all-time great remains to be seen.
I think his character is quite two-faced and he is very calculating in his statements, which seem fake as a consequence.
This is not something that many other drivers display, Schumacher hardly did this, mainly by avoiding to pretend that he is a great mate of everyone in the team. Kimi is just a very straight guy who doesn’t care about what people think and says what he thinks, the best example being his comment about having recently been to the loo before the race a few years back.
Alonso is of course as bad as Hamilton when it comes to sincerity, but I still feel he is less calculating than Hamilton and his entourage.
As Keith already mentioned, his real personality comes out when he has something to complain about.
I think he lost it magnificently at the end of last season and simply folded under the pressure. This can of course be down to his youth, so let’s see what happens next time when he is in grasping distance of a F1-Championship. I’m sure this time will come, probably not this season, but let’s see…
Dare I be different here and say I don’t dislike him? Well I don’t. ITV, Alonso, the books, Switzerland etc… so what. Fernando Alonso whines far more than Lewis and he is adored.
Every high profile athlete that has made the grade quickly gets ground to the ground with criticism from the media as well as drooled over. Take a new song a band has produced and you hear it everywhere for months. That’s the nature of things, but do we have to jump on the bandwagon and dislike a driver because maybe someone else dislikes him or he gets a lot of attention? Not me.
I don’t understand how he can be disliked because ITV talked about him too much, or he has a few books at a young age. How can he be disliked for beating Alonso and competing hard against him?
Maybe I’m under a rock or something, but I just don’t get it.
He’s cool to hate because F1 wasnt that popular in the UK until Lewis came around. Now everyone knows about F1, even if they watch it to see how Hamilton does who cares!? Before all the conversations were about football, now all my mates want to talk about Grand Prix and its great!
I think deep down it is racism. We are not used to the corporate selling of black people as anything other than as performer or as macho-mandingo. Black men have to be funny or ultimately macho to fit the stereotype, LH is neither. That being said McLaren are hopeless at presenting drivers as anything other than as personality free machines - that doesn’t help, Alonso came with a personality Hamilton has not been allowed to show his since he was a kid.
Steve, whilst I am pretty uncomfortable with the stereotypes you evoke, I have to wonder at the point you make with them. Are you seriously suggesting that driving a 200mph racing machine is anything less than the ultimate in macho?
That’s a very good point George. I really meant, but didn’t express it very well, that he doesn’t do the male black man sexual beast posturing - instead, (and this is what some people have said they hate about him!) he is humble and thanks those around him, in a kind of feminine, new man way.
Well, there’s a can of worms opened… worms all over the floor…
it has to be faced up to, sadly.
"I don’t like him because he says the word "cool" and he’s 23 years old."
I resent that! I am also 23……
My dislike for Hamilton has cooled a little now that he is getting a taste of reality. I think one of the major reasons i dislike him is the "spoiled" factor. Kimi, Fernando, Micheal, and Hiedfeld (to name a few recent examples) all came from lesser teams, they had to work their way to the top, where as Hamilton was given a great car from the start… He didn’t even need to pay his dues by testing for a year.
My other problem with him is his disregard for the other drivers on the course, and refusing to join the Drivers Association. I am all for someone who will do anything to win, but to avoid meetings on safety concerns is absurd.
That being said, Mosley is "the most hated man in F1", Lewis is the "most hated driver in F1".
22 comments already!
Let me ask a question on that point Dan: why should he have to "pay his dues" in a lesser car?
Hamilton’s route to Formula 1 was obviously quite unusual: McLaren began supporting him very early in his career. This may now become more common - Honda have signed a 16 year-old karter in recent weeks.
He’d won championships in consecutive seasons in 2005 and 2006 and was clearly ready to move up to F1. What would McLaren have gained by making him a test driver for a year? Renault did that with Heikki Kovalainen and Nelson Piquet Jnr in the last few years and both looked race-rusty on their debuts. Would Hamilton really have done better had they kept him on the sidelines for a year?
So I don’t understand that whole area of the discussion, in terms of what McLaren are supposed to have done wrong and why it’s a reason not to like Hamilton.
for the people who are moanin about him moving to switzerland how can you complain about that, he did say it wasnt just for the privacy and dont pretend youv never complained about the amount of tax that gets taken off your pay cheque i dont blame him for moving.All great sportsmen, especially in sports where the individual gets alot of the praise you need to be ruthless, hamilton is, like it or not thats just they way you have to be to get far in such a competitve world. It would of been very easy for hamilton to start last year let alonso dominate and just learn from him, but then hed be regarded as a number 2 like rubens.
Look at how senna behaved when he was paried up with prost at maclaren, similar circumstances (i know senna wasnt a rookie) but prost was a double champion.
at the end of the day hamilton look s to be the best british driver since mansell, lets see how the next few years go but he out raced alonso last year whatever way you look at ti he did get over it hes a very good racing driver. the public image sadly is part of the world today everything is about image so he has to follow the company line.
if you watch f1 for the sport where hamilton lives an why wouldnt come into it!
On the whole subject of the McLaren support it’s worth adding to Keith’s excellent points above that their support was never a given, but based upon performance. Lewis simply had to deliver at each stage of his career or that support would not have continued. You could argue that, whilst on one level it removed a pressure, on another it created it’s own quite different ones.
I watch F1 in:
ITV And find laughable that the commentators go on saying things like (in spanish GP) "Hamilton has the edge and drove an incredible race" (or something like that, about winning by the edge), and "Massa was trashed by Kimi, couldn’t do a thing about it". Well, Massa beat Lewis.
Tele 5 a spanish channel, and they’re as mental as the british ones, all for Alonso and the blame is in everybody else. I really love to see their faces everytime Alonso DNF.
Fox Sports LA and the commentators there are three argentinean guys, who are very knowledgeable and have the great advantage of not having any countrymen driving right now, so I find them to be the least biased and more accurate.
Televisa and some backwater channel with some moron commentators that couldn’t tell MS apart from RB when they were both with Ferrari. I can see and scream things happening minutes before they even notice.
So, I think that the more knowledge you have paired with the least mental you are (i.e. not having a favourite driver) is the way to go in F1 to NOT go mental.
Maybe Bernie and Max the Perv love some controversy
"Maybe Bernie and Max the Perv love some controversy"
You may be closer to the truth than you think, Ndinyo. Do remember that some of the more watched F1 races this decade came after controversy (2002 and 2006 Monaco GPs prove my point). Controversy, as long as it doesn’t get too poisonous, tends to make for good audience numbers. And we know what Bernie likes, right? ‘Nuff said.
What does that have to do with Lewis Hamilton?
I was not suggesting what Mclaren did was wrong, in fact its worked out better than even Ron would likely admit. I was simply stating that it was a reason to not like him.
To me, seeing a young driver get a great ride and immediately be classified as the next Shu is nauseating. Its kinda like when you first start driving in your ****box car, while your peers get a brand new car. They may well have payed for that car themselves but out of spite, I still don’t like them.
I don’t dislike him because he received the car he did, its the attitude hes developed from starting at the top. He seemed overwhelmed at Canada after winning (like any rookie should be), but toward the end of the year he struck me as arrogant and deserving. I think if he started at the bottom he wouldn’t have that cocky demeanor. Plus I always root for the underdog so after Canada I started rooting against him.
Sorry for the poor sentence structure…. I’m American!
Oh come on Keith - all this Lewis hate campaigns and Alonso fanatism dont look a little bit engineered to u? Even the two occupying the same real estate on the track is treated like a Mohamed Ali fight … come on, that can’t be news worthy, not for this long. Remember how many sensational stuff was ‘leaked’ as true in 2007 when it didnt even exist? I remember at least two journalists apologising for reporting pure hot air as fact.
So, Dan, you’d dislike any rookie who joined McLaren or, presumably, Ferrari or BMW?
NDINYO, I have no idea what you’re suggesting. Are you saying that Mosley and Ecclestone played some role in putting Alonso and Hamilton together at McLaren and making them hate each other?
I also question weather these other young drivers will get the same opportunity as Hamilton. F1 is very much a copy cat sport, but if Hamilton starts to falter this year, other teams may prefer to ease the young drivers into the sport (testing) . It only took Kovi a half the season to orient himself and he had a dreadfully awful car in the 07 Renault.
I think the only reason that the Hamilton experiment was attempted is because they had a 2 time world champion joining the team who has a history of being number 1. There was no risk in putting Hamilton into the car (in hindsight it was an amazing decision).
Of course if Hamilton bounces back this year, everyone will copy Mclaren’s approach.
So, Dan, you’d dislike any rookie who joined McLaren or, presumably, Ferrari or BMW?
I very much like Kubica, but thats because of his humble attitude.
Ack! no more, please.If its not ITV apparently ‘going on’ about Hamilton then its people complaining about ITV ‘going on’ about Hamilton.All this apparent hatred seems entirely unjustified to me. If you dont like ITV mentioning Hamilton so much then complain about ITV but remember they were just as bad if not worse about Schumacher, James Allens sycophantic toadying to to Schuey was just plain disturbing compared with the totally expected focus on Hamiltion.ITV is British, Hamilton is British, McLaren is British, Hamilton is a good driver, a WDC contender - ergo he might get more of a mention in the British press than the rest. Its hardly brain surgery.Get over it and move on. Jesus.
The events in 2007 that have involved the British media and McLaren have made me like Alonso more because he got quite bad rep in Britain.
That said, I’m sure the Spanish media do the same to Hamilton, but I’m British so I don’t know what Formula 1 media is like in Spain.
This is why I’m a Raikkonen fan.
The guy is 23 and being bombarded more media exposure, criticism and pressure to perform than most people face their entire lives. He’s going to make mistakes, say things he will regret later, screw up some relationships, lie sometimes, etc.Give the guy a break.
"Are you saying that Mosley and Ecclestone played some role in putting Alonso and Hamilton together at McLaren and making them hate each other?"
Ndinyo is pushing it a bit too much, I think. BUT… I’m sure Bernie and Max don’t mind all the Lewis-Fernando kerfuffle. In other words, while they’re not actively pushing it, they’re not doing anything to stop it, either… they’re just letting it play out and letting us fans react to it, discuss it… and word of mouth about f1 spreads, so more people watch it. ergo, profit.
At first I did not like Lewis much - he came across as brash and full of himself. But I’ve come to like, even admire, him; getting beaten on a regular basis has made him less cocky. Sure, he’s still self-confident, but why not? He has enormous talent. BTW, this whole thing about hating a driver is ridiculous. Dislike, disrespect, maybe, but hating someone you don’t even know, weird.
It truly is worrying to see some of those youtube videos and the remarks that people leave. I was particularly amused to see one entitled ‘Lewis Hamilton, biggest loser 2007′. I don’t quite know what measurement of ‘loser’ the author was using, but possibly he was a little confused there I think.
So what causes this ‘confusion’?
Most importantly, I think I have come to reluctantly conclude that there is a really worrying undercurrent of tacit racism amongst us. I think it is possible that even those responsible are unaware of it. A really good example is the frequently heard/read innocent remark about Lewis when he appeared on the scene that ‘he is very articulate, isn’t he?’. Clearly this is not an insult in itself, but the fact remains that it is an odd thing to say, it almost implies surprise that he should be articulate.
In addition to this think that the most likely scenario is simply that we have never before seen anything even approaching this level of talent and success in a rookie, and many people just don’t like it, and don’t want to accept it. It is well known that many here in the UK are somewhat resentful of success. I am British but work for 10 months of the year in the USA, and I must say that this is not a trait I have found with the Americans.
"At first I did not like Lewis much - he came across as brash and full of himself. But I’ve come to like, even admire, him; getting beaten on a regular basis has made him less cocky. Sure, he’s still self-confident, but why not? He has enormous talent. BTW, this whole thing about hating a driver is ridiculous. Dislike, disrespect, maybe, but hating someone you don’t even know, weird."
Couldn’t have said it any better, Green Flag. I agree with you on this one.
Anyone under 30 who publishes an autobiography is an arrogrant ****. Hamilton is probably the biggest **** that F1 has seen in a long time.
I have 2 words for anyone who claims that Lewis is disliked just because he was succesful - Jacques Villeneuve. He was a rookie when he came to F1 and was immediately succesful (and none of this rubbish about him being better prepared than Lewis - Indycar is less similar to F1 than GP2 is, and JV had less testing than Lewis before the season started).
As for why I dislike Lewis - it has to be his attitude. I find him smug and arrogant in the extreme, with no care for how he is perceived by other people. Furthermore, he has shown himself to be a sore loser, and while that may be a desirable quality to some extent, I feel that Lewis is "too sore" of a loser.
Forgot to say that JV was not disliked by the majority of people in his first few years, despite his success.
I think Hamilton is simultaneously the most hated and most loved driver in Formula 1…
When a genius arrives (Hamilton might be the next one, but still needs to prove a couple of things) he makes himself noticed, even without a winning car…
The last examples:
Senna with Toleman, in 1984, scored his maiden podium in Monaco, under heavy rain, and could have won if they didn’t interrupt the race… the next year he was hired by Lotus, scored his maiden win, the last six victories for the legendary team, and paved his way to McLaren…
Schumacher qualified seventh for Jordan in 1991 on his debut race, and was immediatly hired by Benneton, team with which he won his first GP in 1992, and his first titles, 1994 and 1995…
Hamilton had the luck of starting with a winner car, and made the most of it, but we should remember that quite a few drivers have had the same luck, but very few had the same fate (most notably David Coulthard, who was a replacement for Senna in 1994)…
I think that he is hated for the over-exposure, for the envy that many many people feel for seeing him shine so brightly, yet so early, and, to some extent, for the "good boy" image he desperately tried to build…
Even though I feared that racism could be a problem for him, I don’t think it is the main cause for the hatred… Instead, its the "lucky rookie" image, "doesn’t matter if he is black or white", that annoys his detractors…
41 Michael Dunn 2 May 2008 at 5:55 pm ‘Anyone under 30 who publishes an autobiography is an arrogrant ****. Hamilton is probably the biggest **** that F1 has seen in a long time.’
This is precisely the type of comment that has me so concerned about current attitudes. Okay, Michael, so you think that 23 is a little young to be putting out an autobiography. Well, I agree with you. but ‘arrogant ****’…….? the dictionary definition being: 1. a highly offensive term for a woman’s vagina or genital area (taboo) 2. U.K. a highly offensive term for somebody regarded as unintelligent, worthless, or detestable (taboo insult) Is this REALLY necessary?
Yeah can we drop the swearing please guys? Cheers.
I agree with Paul. My feelings toward Hamilton may be strong but I would never use that terminology toward anyone.
I "dislike" Hamilton, but I "hate" ignorant remarks like that.
does anyone else see the irony of people moaning that they don’t like him because he has too much exposure…. on an article about him and making it successful in terms of comments?
I can remember the Australian Gp last year, at the end, when the three drivers were preparing to go to the podium. The lineup was predictable, atleast as far as the first two drivers were concerned.
Raikkonen had led from pole to a comfortable victory, Alonso had slotted in second starting his second season as defending champion, and then there was this new kid.
The smile on Hamilton’s face was one of pure joy and satisfaction, the grimaces on Raikkonen’s and Alonso’s faces were the ones of two men who had had their party gatecrashed by a teenybopper.
Everybody had assumed that these two men would reign supreme, unchallenged, in the face of Michael Schumacher retiring. It would be a straight fight, Alonso vs Raikkonen, the two fastest drivers, one in a Merc, the other in Michael’s old car.
That day, these two men realised that 2007 would not be quite
as the pundits had predicted. When Michael was in F1, he dominated, now he was gone, the biggest threat to Alonso’s defence of his title, and Raikkonen getting his first crown, was finished. Surely now there would not be a problem? Wrong!
I was caught by surprise too, by this new talent, his speed, confidence, and they way he conducted himself. As if he had been doing this since the cradle.
In the races that followed, his stock rose, and his profile went through the roof. Nobody was talking about anybody else except the ‘rookie’, the underdog, Alonso’s teammate.
It was an unbelievable situation, a rookie ‘could’ be champion, could beat the best of the best. The hatred that has followed is
understandable, natural, and completely normal.
Personally I always believed Raikkonen would win, he had always had bad luck in the past, he deserved to be champion.
I knew Alonso would push him super close, to the limit and beyond, you could see how much Fernando wanted that third crown, to emulate his idle Aryton Senna.
Hamilton came within a whisker of denying them both, and made alot of enemies whilst doing it, but he has helped the sport. He has broken the comfort zone for drivers and fans alike, we have now four or five drivers now that are champion material. Two proven talents, and three others.
Lewis Hamilton is part of that, whether people like it or not.
the limit, you sound like James Allen.
sorry about the swearing Keith, I promise not to insult anyone else like that again.