Lewis Hamilton’s career in video (part 2)

30th October 2009, 11:36 by Journeyer 25 Comments »

Hamilton was very nearly champion in his first season

Hamilton was very nearly champion in his first season

F1 Fanatic guest writer Journeyer concludes his look at the career of world champion Lewis Hamilton.

Lewis Hamilton got a lot of breaks in the minor formulae thanks to two reasons: his speed and his link to McLaren’s Ron Dennis. Now the dream was about to be fulfilled – an F1 drive with McLaren.

2007: Hamilton’s target for his first race in Australia was to finish the race, hopefully in the points. But thanks to some bravery and some luck, he had an amazing start, going round the outside to pass teammate Fernando Alonso. Although Alonso later got back ahead of him, Hamilton was more than happy with third on his debut.

After finishing every race on the podium up to that point, many were thinking it was a matter of time before Hamilton won. And win he did, in dominant fashion, in Canada. Here are the highlights

And yet, when Hamilton was so close to being the first rookie to win a title, he let it slip away. McLaren was also partly to blame as they left him on wet-weather tyres on a drying track until the tyres were so worn the canvas was showing. By the time he was called in, he had no grip, and that was recipe for a disaster.

Just to make things more interesting, we’re listening to Spanish commentary…

2008: His second season was somewhat less consistent. There were times he struggled (like running into Alonso in Bahrain), but there were moments of utter domination. Monaco is one example. Again, he was a bit lucky (a puncture accidentally shifted him to a favourable strategy), but when the opportunity came up, he took it with both hands.

Hamilton was also showing a love for wet conditions. Last year’s British Grand Prix was a one-man show of domination again from him, winning by a mile – and then some.

But just like the year before, it seemed that Lewis was about to let the title slip away again as the rain began to fall in Brazil and Sebastian Vettel slipped past. But this time, Lewis had other ideas.

This video has German commentary.

2009: Hamilton began this season on a terrible note. It should’ve been fantastic, after charging through to third, but two errors of judgement from the McLaren pitwall led to a scandal over lying. Ted Kravitz walks us through the details.

After struggling with this year’s car initially (even failing to make it out of Q1 a couple of times), the car finally began to come good for wins. He won at Hungary and Singapore (shown here with French commentary), while also having chances to win at Valencia, Italy, and Brazil.

So what does the future hold for Lewis Hamilton? Well, we don’t even know who his team mate for next year is yet. But whoever it is, if his car next year is as good as it is now, he should contend for the title.

But will he indeed stay at McLaren for the rest of his career? Who knows? I’d honestly be surprised if he didn’t change teams, but if Lewis does it, he’d have well and truly repaid Ron’s trust in him.

So that’s it for this season for me. But there are many more drivers for us to cover next season. In the meantime, enjoy the off-season, and see you all again next year!

Read the first part: Lewis Hamilton’s career in video (Part 1)

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