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All Hail Lewis Hamilton!!!

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Yesterday, we witnessed probably the greatest sporting achievement in British sporting history. Lewis Hamilton equalled Michael Schumacher’s seemingly unassailable record of seven world championships. Add to that record numbers of Grand Prix wins (94), podiums (163) and polls (97) and you have a true champion of champions who must be the Greatest Ever Formula 1 driver.

He has done this from humble beginnings, a black man in a rich, white man’s sport, with style and panache and a keen sense of fair play. He has always been a clean driver who can never be accused of taking a rival out to gain an advantage. He has developed over the years, starting off, like Max Verstappen now, capable of hair-raising overtakes and wonderfully skilful in the wet, to the ultimate race strategist with an astonishingly sensitive touch, and tyre protector he is now. Throughout, his performances are remarkable for the paucity of mistakes. He has always made fewer than his opponents.

It is often said he is only the best because he has the best car, but only the best drivers find their way into the best cars and only the truly exceptional manage to stay there. However, he has regularly out-performed the expectation of the car. In 2008, 2017 and 2018, Ferrari had the best car but Hamilton still won. His team-mate, in exactly the same car has always struggled to better him across a whole season. In his debut season he shocked a brilliant driver, Fernando Alonso, by out-driving him and very nearly winning the championship. Jenson Button managed to finish higher in the McLaren of 2011 but quickly moved on. Nico Rosberg won the championship in 2016 at the third time of trying, an effort that depended somewhat on Hamilton’s ill-luck that season and exhausted him to such a degree that he immediately went into an unexpected retirement. Bear in mind, when Hamilton switched from McLaren to Mercedes, he was going to a new team in a move that was regarded as a huge risk at the time. It wasn’t as though he went to a team of established excellence like Ferrari.

Hamilton’s brilliance has been confirmed in the last two races on circuits he found problematic throughout all the practice sessions. He didn’t just find a way to win, he completely annihilated the field. Yesterday, in Istanbul, the best car was the Red Bull but by making the fewest mistakes, slipping once early on while his partner could barely keep the Mercedes on the track, deploying his own astute judgement over-ruling his team, magnificent tyre management, staying out and driving his intermediates into slicks as the circuit dried, and sheer speed, he triumphed by a huge margin. The race before in Portimão was equally a masterclass, putting in fastest lap after fastest lap when he could have been quietly protecting his lead, breaking the course record on the final lap.

Let’s hail a living British sporting legend who has achieved the seemingly impossible against the odds. Lewis Hamilton, we salute you!

9

Comments

  1. No doubt that Hamilton is brilliant at what he does, but the whole thing leaves me cold. Overpaid petrolheads wasting valuable natural resources travelling round the planet to drive round in circles. Tedious beyond measure.

    • Couldn’t agree more. He seems a really good guy and is obviously brilliant at what he does but “greatest achievement in British sporting history”?? My father in law was a car-engine designer and my dearest is a proper petrol-head so I’ve grown to almost quite like Formula 1.
      But one thing is clear, at least to me – it ain’t no sport!!

    • Yes we know. You make the same comments every time there’s a post about motor racing. I feel the same way about cycling – swarms of characterless lycra clad drones, in a sport that is best known for theraputic use exemptions and missing jiffy bags.

        • You aren’t disagreeing with the OP – your first two words are “No doubt”, confirming that the opinion expressed by the OP is correct. But then you go on to trot out a personal moan about the context in which the expressed opinion has relevance. Hence the simple question, “why are you bothering?”. Why not just move along?

          • Can’t see where I agreed with the contention that Hamilton had the greatest sporting achivement in British history, which was the OP’s opinion. I merely agreed that he is very good at what he does.

            Why are you bothered about why I bothered?

            And I notice you haven’t had a dig at Lodey for agreeing with me. You could at least be consistent and have a go at everybody who doesn’t share your opinion.

            • You immediately jumped in with the very first comment on the thread with your many-times-repeated personal predeliction for rubbishing F1.

              Any comments after that (i.e. lodey’s for one) were just following your intervention, steering the thread down your chosen personal winge path, and not the OP’s celebratory one.

              If you want to highjack things at least be prepared for others to ask you to justify yourself.

              Start your own thread moaning about how crap F1 is if you like. I promise not to comment on it.

              • As I understand it, the point of these threads, and indeed the entire board, or “blog” if you really must insist, is to invite comment and discussion, whether you agree with the subject or not.

                I would suggest therefore that what one person sees as “thread-crapping” is just another’s different opinion, to be tolerated or ignored, rather than shouted down.

                • I am totes agree with you there, MC. And whatsmore, like you I am a bit perturbed by the use of the word “blog” to describe The Afterword. However, if I may be frank, “board” seems even more skew-whiffy than “blog” to me. Were it up to me, I’d call it a “site”. Yes.

              • Your pomposity knows no bounds. Once again, you are implying that nobody should make a comment that deviates from the opinion of the OP. Since when did you get to define the posting rules here? If you don’t like my posts, then just ignore them – that’s what I do with 99.99% of yours.

                And the word is hijack, not highjack…

  2. I was raised within cycling distance of both Rye House go-kart circuit (breeding ground of many a F1 driver) and Stevenage.

    Lewis was taught at primary school in “The ‘Nidge” by my secondary school chum Elaine. He went back later, it’s on YT somewhere. {Edit}

    She’s at 2:20 in the above clip, hasn’t changed a bit (but had much longer hair in 1985). I used to quite fancy her…

  3. I concur with most of the sentiments of the OP, but it remains interesting that he is far from universally loved by British sport fans – probably even so less than other successful stars with similarly spikey public personas such as Andy Murray.

    Ignoring the depressing possibility of simple racism, the most common reasons for the dislike of Hamilton seem to boil down to a) he doesn’t live in the UK anymore for tax reasons, b) he’s a spoiled brat, and c) he’s a bit too lippy. We Brits seem to prefer modest underachievers generally.

    The tax thing is inevitable, I think. When you are paid a fortune to do your job, the world becomes your oyster. Did Mansell, Hill or Hunt spend most of their time in the UK either? The spoiled brat thing is just untrue – clearly he was fortunate to have a very devoted father who was keen to see him succeed, but there was no privileged upbringing with money never a worry – unlike at least 50% of current F1 drivers, many of whom initially seem to simply buy their way into an F1 drive with sponsorship deals. The lippy thing – well, surely that’s a reason to love him? He is not especially erudite or always worthwhile to hear, but I enjoy the fact that he is outspoken on issues beyond racing and he clearly has huge self-confidence.

    Deserves to be a shoe-in for this year’s BBC SPOTY.

    • In the YT clip above, he says something to the effect of “Stevenage is still home, I will come back one day”.

      Given the F1 crews are on the move every couple of weeks, I guess he is a citizen of nowhere at the moment.

        • From 1:35 in the clip above, if you want it straight from the horse’s mouth. Not that he’s a horse. Even if he did later clumsily refer to leaving Nidge as “get out of the slums”.

          I know Stevenage well. Given the choice of The Nidge or Monaco, I know which I’d choose.

    • Re the tax point – a fair proportion of motor racing drivers have buggered off to save tax – David Coulthard, Nigel Mansell, Eddie Jordan, Jason Plato, Derrick Warwick spring to mind.

      Hamilton remains unloved by Little England because he’s black and “lippy”. He can be a tad arrogant too but amongst racing drivers that’s hardly rare. Hunt was a walking disaster area with anger management issues but seemingly loved all the more for it (other than amongst the track stewards he punched).

      Well over due a knighthood.

      • You can throw in cyclists such as Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas and Lizzie Armistead as Monaco residents but they seem to attract none of the criticism Hamilton receives. Incidentally the latest HMRC figures (for the 2019 tax year) put him in the top 5000 of UK tax payers.

              • This is a rather tired old criticism that comes out every year. It is actually awarded to who the public think the best sportsperson of the year was, and everyone has a “personality” whether it is a riveting one or not.

                Regards,

                “Interesting” Dai

                • There are certainly some winners whom one wouldn’t mind being seated next to at dinner, but it’s undeniable that ‘personality’ isn’t the first word to come to mind when thinking some of them. Of course this could have been avoided if it had just been called ‘Sports Person of the Year’ instead.

              • Martin Brundle is excellent on Sky and very witty. A perfect foil for David Croft with Ted Kravitz making Tiggerish contributions from the pit wall. They are amongst the best commentating combos for any sport, IMV. Only Bunce and Costello can compete.

      • People seem to actively dislike F1 whereas they are merely indifferent to, say, golf. I don’t have much time for it myself, but still recognise Hamilton’s feat as remarkable.

        And of course he’s a rich and successful black man who doesn’t that get in the way of promoting a political message. That makes a lot of people very uncomfortable.

      • I’m not certain that race is the main factor in itself – there have been black British sporting heroes who have gained a place in the nation’s esteem. However it’s the combination of being a little arrogant, not being prepared to be self-deprecating, or act the clown, not having had a real apparent struggle to achieve success, with a period of failure beforehand to win our sympathy, being in a rich man’s sport that is alien to a lot of people – and then being black on top of all of that. The nearest parallel I can think of is Tiger Woods who I think has similarly struggled to really achieve popularity – though in his case he didnt help himself by acting so obnoxiously in his private life.

  4. I’m with you @Tiggerlion – the man is unchallengeably the best, most gifted driver in F1, not just the fastest (as a RACING car driver, this is of course pretty important).

    What impressed me yesterday, after a race performance that was utterly impressive on its own, was how he stood there afterwards, talking to the ‘bloke-from-Channel-4’, whose name escapes me, on the world’s stage in Istanbul, and said he wanted to steer Formula 1 to a future of greater awareness of racial issues, and awareness of human rights issues in the countries where the races occur.

    In other words, he was calling out Turkey as a problem for him. The undisputed greatest F1 driver of our time tells the host nation, right after winning their GP in their capital city, that their racist and human rights abuses will not go unnoticed in the future of his sport if he has any say in the matter.

    Don’t recall any other international sports stars saying something similar at the moment juste like that. Outstanding young man, outstanding talent, and a great ambassador for politics in sport being taken seriously because sport needs to take politics seriously. Top fella.

    • Absolutely.

      He has the flair of Senna and the methodical efficiency of Prost, so he doesn’t need the almost psychopathic ruthlessness of Schumacher. He also is aware of what’s going on in the world and isn’t afraid of speaking out.

    • It’ll be interesting to see how Lewis reacts to racing in next year’s brand new Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
      What will he have to say? I wonder, about the kleptocratic dynasty that rules there, effectively keeping a stranglehold on the Sunni branch of Islam, their financial sponsorship of terrorism, the murder of opponents abroad, the abuses of human rights at home and their continued warmongering in Yemen.

    • I know. I can only presume he never heard that Barnsley stayed up with an injury time goal after being in the relegation zone since September! Thanks to the lockdown, it will remain a record that will never be beaten, being in the relegation zone for 10 months and then staying up. I’d like to see Lewis Hamilton in his fancy car do that!

      • Joe Davis won every World Snooker Championship he entered, which was every year between 1927 and 1940, and then again in 1946 after the tournament returned after a 5 year hiatus during the war. It was probably a ‘world’ championship in the same way as the World Series in baseball though.

        And the chap with the pipe who died a few weeks ago, David Bryant. He was pretty dominant in bowling for a couple of decades, winning 19 world and commonwealth gold medals.

        And I can’t remember Big Daddy getting beaten very often…

  7. He is the best driver out there – beyond Bottas and Verstappen there is little close competitiion, but Racing Point are getting closer and Renault continue to over-perform.
    The expected competition – Sebastian Vettel – continues to fail to live up to what he can do in a non-competitive Ferrari (LeClerc is coaxing more out of the car, and the former Champion looks like he’s just given up. Maybe when he was winning everything, the car was more of a factor than we thought?).
    But, Hamilton does not have a clear run at things, the slightest mistake can see him at the back of the grid or in a barrier. But that doesn’t happen because he knows what he needs to do to keep the Merc on the black stuff.

    7 championships in 12 years is no lucky achievement (especially when you consider he was only 12 when he started in F1).
    Add to that, he also held the Top Gear lap record (later beaten by Vettel and Mark Webber)

    • And bear in mind he only lost the 2007 title in his debut year by one point due to a strategy error by the team, and the 2016 title by five points when he seemed to get all the bad luck going such as an engine blow up when leading in Malaysia and looking set for maximum points while ending up with none.

      • “strategy error by the team” – I presume you mean China where McLaren failed to pit him when his tyres were down to the canvas and he slid off into the pit lane entry kitty litter?

        Also he lost the championship in his rookie year because of an unexplained ‘gearbox glitch’ in the final race in Brazil .. suspiciously like a deliberate race throw to ensure McLaren did not win the driver’s championship in 2007 I reckon

  8. It is a fine achievement, I have sometimes been interested in F1, but am less of an avid watcher than I used to be, as most races are like watching paint dry.

    I went to the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal a few years ago. Not for the actual race, but for final qualifying. The location in Montreal is outstanding, on a man made island (built with the earth excavated from the tunnels needed for the underground metro system) which is just one stop from downtown on that metro system.

    Walking from the station to the track it was amazing to first see F1 cars screaming down a straight at unbelievable speed and then braking in an incredibly short space to go around a hair pin bend. Quite a sight (and sound).

  9. Having once driven something very fast (Formula 3? Who knows, I don’t) round Brands Hatch and scared myself shitless I have nothing but admiration for the skill of F1 drivers and clearly, especially given yesterday’s performance, Hamilton is an absolute genius.
    But, and it’s a huge but, 97.4% of GPs are boring, boring, boring. Listening to commentators pretending that “the race for 11th place is really hotting up” is just having a laugh.
    I have long thought that the name of each car should go into a hat before every race and the drivers pick one out at random. I strongly suspect Hamilton would still end up winning the championship but wouldn’t it be fun watching him battle his way through in a Honda Civic instead of the usual procession?

  10. I’m not a massive F1 fan, but a combination of two teenage boys that are and a friend who comes each year to marshal at the Singapore GP (except this year obviously) and gives us free tickets, means that I have a passing interest.

    We did watch the Turkish GP and I can only add to the praise that Hamilton is getting. He is a phenomenal driver (shown by his decision to over rule his team on tyres at the end) and is certainly up there with the sporting greats – anyone that says racing drivers are not real sportsmen are just being silly……

    • In the seventies, there was a TV show called Superstars. Sportsmen competed in sports that weren’t their own. Kevin Keegan famously fell off a bike. The racing drivers and jockeys always did well. They are actually extremely fit. Not only do they have to slim down to get in their seat, they have to be tough as nails to endure the stresses and strains of the race.

      • I’ll try one more time “just being silly”. Hamilton is a genius and Formula 1 is not a sport. If the driving conditions are good then almost all of the time the best car wins. In order to make things more exciting the authorities introduced the Tyres Regulations but even with that “drama” if it ain’t raining it almost invariably turns into a procession.
        Then there’s the obscene salaries, why does a relatively minor “sport” attract the highest wages – Hamilton’s pay packet makes footballers look like paupers ?
        And in these times what excuse is there for watching petrol driven cars whoosh around burning fossil fuel? As far as this non petrol-head can gather nothing that is developed on the Formula 1 track these days filters down into cars what you and me drive.
        Lewis deserves a knighthood not least as his role as a black role model but “greatest British sportsman”? That’s just being silly.

        • Certainly most of the intrigue in F1 has to be manufactured by making them stop for a rest a couple of times per race or by putting a safety car out to bunch them back up. In that respect it’s no more a sport than I’m A Celebrity, Change My Tyres or International Contraflow Challenge. They even give the car behind a ‘go faster’ button to help it overtake. The more you have to manipulate competition, the less of a sport it is.

          But Hamilton is exceptional good at it nevertheless.

        • The phenomenally expensive engines in today’s Formula 1 car are the most carbon efficient on the planet. They have been hybrid for many years now and their development has led to step changes in the engines in our cars, including electric ones. A bit like the NASA space programme, when the finest minds collectively address a problem, such as battery weight, maximising miles per gallon of fuel etc, they solve problems for us all.

            • The old NASA space programme fallacy – apart from Teflon (which doesn’t actually work all that well on frying pans) what else? Not saying we shouldn’t be exploring Space, we should.
              My ex-car designer FiL admits 99% of the stuff going on in F1 cars will mean nothing for the cars we ordinary folks drive. And even the 1% gain doesn’t mean F1 is a sport cos it ain’t.

                • I reckon 6mpg is a good average for an F1 car from the start of the 3-litre era (1966) to the present day, with the exception of the early turbo cars in the late 70s/early 80s, which could use as much fuel as they liked; it acted as a coolant, as much as a fuel. A Repco or Ford DFV 3-litre probably did 6-8mpg.

                  Something I did find incredible was that during the era of 1.5-litre engines, cars like Jimmy Clark’s Lotus 25 or Graham Hill’s BRM could – and did – do more than one race on the same set of Dunlop tyres.

                  I’m very sad, and might look through some books later for detailed figures. . .

                    • That doesn’t surprise me; high revs, low gears, steering the car on the accelerator as much as the wheel. A BDA or similar powered rear wheel drive Escort rally car still looks splendid in action.

                    • Bloke I worked with had a Jag XJ12 – 6 mpg.
                      He took the bumpers off and boosted it to 8 mpg.
                      It’s in the River Thames now (Insurance job?)

          • Slight irrelevance alert: some years ago, courtesy of a mate who had a mate who worked there, I had a behind the scenes tour of whichever F1 team that was in Witney – Lotus, maybe?

            Anyhow, the highlight was a complete, working engine, made entirely of wood. It was beautiful.

            • The team based in Witney were Benetton. They bought out ‘Toleman’, whose factory they took over. Benetton later moved to a new facility at Whiteways Technical Centre, in an old quarry near the village of Enstone. They in turn became ‘Renault’.

              ‘Arrows’ had a factory at Leafield, in an old radio station.

                • When the Williams team used the Renault V-10 engine, the Renault engine technicians wrote a little piece of software which allowed them to use the engine as a ‘musical’ instrument. In neutral, and with the engine idling, the revs could be varied to produce different notes. Visiting VIPs were often ‘treated’ to their national anthem being played.

                  • That party piece is included in Bargey’s video in this thread where Richard Hammond tries to drive an F1 car.

                    I used to live between blokes that worked for Williams and Marussia F1 teams. The former was complimentary about Claire Williiams, less so about Lance Stroll. The latter said they used blutack to hold up signs with company logos on such was the frequency of their change. I think Haas operate there now.

      • Re: “Kevin Keegan famously fell off a bike.”

        He most certainly did:

        The king of those early Superstars series was Swedish pole-vaulter Kjell Isaksson, who now lives just down the road from me here in Stockholm. No – it’s true!

        • Still have vivid memories of Keegan’s peculiar unease on the cinder track. In the later series I remember Brian Jacks as king of the dips. Welsh long jumper Lynn Davies is another name I recall from the show. It all feels so ancient now, as old as the fossil record.

          • My fondest memory is of the endearingly hapless Stan Bowles, a very skilled footballer but a complete duffer at everything else. Couldn’t run more than a few metres, couldn’t jump, had no upper body strength, and was a bundle of nerves. In the pistol shooting, he accidentally pulled the trigger picking his weapon up and put a hole through the table.

            • According to his autobiography, Stan was “quite refreshed” the night before. An explanation for poor performance?
              The fee he earned saw him through a couple of nights at White City dog track.

        • Re. “The racing drivers and jockeys always did well.” [in Superstars].

          Well, you could be right, but James Hunt came to grief in the weightlifting event in the gym. He was lifting the bar above his head, and then it wouldn’t go any further – not because it was too heavy for him to lift, but because he had some form of problem with his shoulder joints, and he couldn’t extend his arms above his head. Very bizarre. The referees had to be called in.
          Sadly, the whole incident is not preserved for posterity on YouTube.

        • Bracknell Sports Centre, I have ran around that track in 56 seconds* I’ll have you know.

          *I was officially the second best 400m runner in my year at school.

          • That’s impressive. I was a decent middle distance/cross country runner at school, but just couldn’t sustain any speed over 400m. However hard I tried, I couldn’t get below 66 seconds, which is about the average lap speed of a modern 10,000m (25 laps) runner.

            Out of interest, what could the best 400m runner in your school do?

            • He was a couple of seconds faster than me. He was a member of Bracknell Athletic Club. He was a good mate of mine and he admitted he didn’t think he was going to catch me coming out of the last bend. He had no idea how close I was to collapsing though. I still have no idea how I managed to run the last straight. Tough gig the 400m. I was told to sprint as fast as I could and keep going.

      • Not all of them. René Arnoux was comically bad. I think the longer distance running event was a particularly bad round. I am, however, remembering something from when I was about 11 years old, so I could be wrong, but I remember my mum taking a shine to him and she always liked the hapless ones, as she felt sorry for them. Although she said something about his nice eyes too.

        But here’s one I wonder if anyone can help me with. I am damn sure there was a Superstars, or similar themed competition (pretty sure it was a Superstars special though) with pop stars, cos I’m sure I recall Jimmy Pursey being absolutely hopeless. I’ve searched for proof of this before, but haven’t found any yet. I’m sure I’m right though. If not, move this comment to the sleep thread and put it down to one of my vivid dreams.

  11. I am not convinced. I’m not a F1 fan – or a fan of motor sports in general.

    It strikes me that if you want to call an individual or a team “great” then the only variables that should be in play are their talent vs opponents’ talent. You introduce the technology variable like F1 cars do and all of a sudden it’s difficult to pull out individual vs technology.

    To use a nice US concept, when you put him up against other sportspeople who rely solely upon talent, he’ll always have an asterisk next to his achievements.

    And that’s before you start me on his staggering hypocrisy.

    • I have watched virtually every GP since me and Lady W got hitched 79 years ago. It gets exciting when it rains or Vettel gets angry. Apart from that it’s all about the car.
      Have a car raffle before each start and let’s see what happens.

        • Cos I’m a loyal husband and all round good guy. And I resent your “take so little of it in” remark. I’m fluent in pit-stop speak and ‘he’s shredding rubber”. Mind you, I will admit that 97.4% of what David Coulthard says is a complete mystery to me – ” He’s losing differential squiggly and it’s all because of the power to drift rod equation”

          • So Mercedes-AMG are just pissing money away paying Hamilton to drive a car that anyone would win in – Lando, Grosjean, Jedward, Clarkson? Given the vast amounts of data they have from each race, amazing that they’ve never realised.

              • Never said Hamilton wasn’t the best driver, he clearly is, but would he win in one of those cars that battle it out each race for 16th place?
                Now how could we find that out? I know let’s have a raffle on the grid. First name out gets the Mercedes, last one out gets the Honda Civic. After that the track is lined with fire engines pouring out water. Oh, and in the pits tyres are randomly picked from unmarked bins.
                I still think Hammy would win, or at least win most times, but oh so much better than the current “And it’s the twenty third one-two for Mercedes in a row”.

                • Mercedes deploy team orders less than most. 2017 was an exceptional season. Ferrari started with the better car and Mercedes struggled to keep up. In Bahrain, they did order Bottas to move aside in the hope that Hamilton could trouble the leaders more. In Hungary, Hamilton was allowed a pass to attack Raikkonen. After he failed to succeed, he gave his place back to Bottas later in the race.

                  Alfa Romeo ordered Fagioli to change to Fangio’s misfiring car in 1951. Ferrari did the same for Fangio in 1956 at the expense of Peter Collins. Rubens Barrichello was ordered to let Schumacher pass almost on the finish line in Austria 2002. I wonder how many fewer titles would Schumacher have without team orders and running his nearest rival off the road?

                    • I’m saying that Hamilton has benefited from team orders less than most. Mercedes barely use them and are well known to undo them in a race if the overall strategy doesn’t work out. Hamilton has certainly benefited less than the two other strongest cases for GOAT, Fangio and Schumacher.

                    • Surely it’s a sport (I accept it is a sport, others disagree) which relies on a combination of car, team and driver. The tactic cannot be for each driver to race purely for themselves.

                      The same thing happens in team sports when, say, an attacking midfield footballer is instructed to feed a striker rather than taking the ball into the opponent’s’ box himself, or in more individual sports like athletics when teammates can act as pacesetters. In most sports the idea of winning being a pure, individual achievement is a myth, though of course the strategy has to built around someone with the ability to maximise success. Exceptions could be argued for one-on-one sports, like boxing or tennis.

  13. To simply drive an F1 car in a straight line requires a level of physicality way beyond Joe Public; the strength and gym work required to be able to handle such high speeds/fast turns is incredible.

    I recall seeing a feature on Damon Hill, back in the 90s, where he was hooked up to a machine that replicated the force placed on the body when driving at such high speeds – it looked pretty painful. To that end, Hamilton is the sort of blend of physicality, talent and skill that marks out many great sportsmen.

    I completely agree, however, that F1 is deathly dull.

  14. I was a huge F1 fan back in the Prost / Senna days – not so much now mainly because the drivers are fairly dull, the cars all look the same and sound pretty boring. The tracks are fairly dull as well with a couple of exceptions.

    One thing to bear in mind – Hamilton was over a lap ahead of his teammate by the end of the race on Sunday so it’s definitely not the case that ‘anyone’ or even any F1 driver on the grid can beat all the others providing they are in the best car

    • I’ve enjoyed this season because they have used circuits that haven’t had a Formula 1 race for some years. They have been unfamiliar to almost everyone, but which driver has adapted and mastered them the quickest?

      Sadly, it’s often the newest courses that are the dullest. Abu Dhabi anyone?

      • I agree it’s been a great season this time round. As for the familiar venues, I confess that Monaco always leaves me cold. It’s such a team strategy race, because there are so few ways for the driver to pass the car in front except via the pitlane. If I could go to any F1 race in the season, all expenses paid, Monaco would probably be the best for the off-circuit hellraising, but probably the least exciting as a spectator on race day. Unless someone ended up in the drink of course.

        • Monaco is only kept on the calender because of nostalgia for a by-gone age. The races are unexciting. Qualifying is the important part of the weekend. You have to admire Rosberg in the season he won the championship, bagging poll by leaving the course and bringing out the yellow flags when Hamilton was on a flier.

          • Absolutely – unless it’s raining then Monaco is a total bore as a race

            A shame as it’s probably the race that gets the most publicity outside each country’s home race.

  15. What antipathy I have is down to the fact that I dislike most arrangements of facial hair and Hamilton’s more than almost any other.
    Kudos for being the best and also for being an “anointed one” who succeeded absolutely. It doesn’t always work out that way, especially if you’re English and under the tabloids’ magnifying glass.
    Formula One?

  19. He’s an enigma isn’t he.
    Some bits I really like (Vegan food chain, BLM), some bits not so much (music, fashion range).

    However, I have absolutely no problem with him living elsewhere (we should all use our freedom of movement while we have the chance … tell Lewis it stops in 6 weeks), but if I had the choice of Stevenage or Monaco, I’d pick Stevenage!
    Monaco looks like hell on earth.

  20. I’ve never driven a car, and I have no interest in F1, though as a pre-teen I found James Hunt’s t shirt slogan ‘If you think my girlfriend can fight, you should see her box’ kinda amusing. Different times etc…
    Thing is, whenever SPOTY comes around, the whole P bit of it is debated. Having spent a lot of time with a large number of sportspeople over the years, I’d conclude that we really really really oughtn’t expect anything of value from them until they’re long into retirement. Hamilton has been driving, from Go Karts up through the car ranks, from a single figure age, and that kind of narrow focus, with the surrounding enablers/supporters means that he won’t have developed much in the way of bigger world perspective. Same goes for most sportspeople, whatever the particular discipline. Once they’re retired, though, they can become interesting. Brian ‘Killer’ Kilcline being a great case in point. Not Lee Chapman, mind.

  22. Re Hamilton’s relative lack of success in the Personality of the Year vote, it could be due to racism, but so am not entirely persuaded. The vote has been won in the past by Kelly Holmes, Mo Farah, Fatima Whitbread, Lennox Lewis, Daley Thompson and Linford Christie, as well as Hamilton himself. None of the last four could be described as lacking in confidence, but I suspect that the people voting view Hamilton as having a petulant side to his personality which might differentiate him from the others.

    • Racism has to be an element but the other factor is that Hamiltion competes as an individual where is nationality is secondary. With the exception of Lennox Lewis, all the others won on the back of Olympic success where nationality is everything.

      • Possibly so, then again I reminded of the run-up to 2012 when Lewis Hamilton came to Luton to carry the Olympic Torch. Not many people turned out to see him. Those that did were overwhelmingly white, Luton is one of three towns in the country where white British people are in a minority. It would seem that indifference ( at best) towards Hamilton transcends communities.

        • According to the 2011 census, Luton was 54.7% white, so still in the majority. Sorry, I am very dull.

          When I lived in a village near Royston, the gay couple “we’re both in I.T.” in the big Tudor house were exposed by the News of the World for were running phone sex chat lines from the rooms upstairs. The local vicar got into hot water when he was quoted as saying “I am shocked. This isn’t Luton.”

  23. “Has to be an element” is a bit extreme.

    There’s plenty of other posts on this thread casting legitimate doubt on the “greatest” claim. Are you suggesting that were all motivated in part by racism?

      • My huge antipathy is driven by the fact you can’t divorce his achievements from the technology and team orders, which make a mockery of the idea of fair and honest racing.

        I would say the same about most modern F1 champions. I would imagine I’m not alone in this stance.

        • Everyone involved in F1 works within parameters. Hamilton is subject to everyone else’s restrictions and opportunities. He hardly deserves anyone’s “huge antipathy” because of that, does he? He’s been given nothing, and merited every advance he’s made (including team changes). It’s a measure of his success that he can drive the best car, not some kind of unfair advantage given to him. Save your “huge antipathy” for someone who’s worked hard to earn it, Sitheref. Your prejudice (whatever form it takes) is showing.

            • No one made the arbiter of what’s acceptable. It strikes me that you don’t like it when you don’t get the deference you seem to feel you’re due.

              You accused me, with not a shred of evidence, of harboring prejudice.

              I told you to fuck off, which seemed then and still seems fair enough.

              • It would, wouldn’t it? What I found remarkable was your “huge antipathy” (@moose-the-mooche). This is a mealy-mouthed way of saying hatred. That’s what it means. Not dislike or disapproval, it means you hate the guy. And for what? No reasonable, rational reason that I can think of (nor you explain, apparently). It’s based on some kind of prejudice, by definition. That’s what a prejudice is. Not based on reasoned argument, but on gut feeling, which you might need to take a few Rennies for. If you can give reasons why you hate Lewis Hamilton (without trying to put a harmless spin on “huge antipathy”), go ahead. Or, you know …

                • Clearly you can’t read and contextualize.

                  I don’t care about F1, regardless of who is driving. I couldn’t care any less about it continuing or stopping. I don’t regard it as sport because – as I have referenced – of the dependence on machines, and team orders.

                  That’s it.

                  For you to suggest otherwise, or try to put words in my mouth that weren’t there says more about you and your mentality than it does about me.

                  Just so we’re clear, and so we’re in as few syllables as possible so there is no room for misinterpretation: I think you are a cunt.

                  • Your opinion of me is of no interest – I really don’t care one way or the other, but you still haven’t given (can’t give) a rational reason for your “huge antipathy” for Lewis Hamilton, and I didn’t put those words in your mouth. Just to be clear – this is not “couldn’t care less” about the sport in general, it’s hating Lewis Hamilton. Still, eh? Let’s just “agree to disagree”!

                    Your vocabulary reminds me of a story you’ll get a laugh out of. You’ll have to agree with me that the first quality a referee has to possess is a sense of humour, right!

                    Years ago, I found myself in the same party as Mark Hughes, in the Little Angel at Henley. He had to be pointed out to me – I’m not a football fan. At one point he said “The thing about refs is, they’re cunts on the field, but you meet them in the pub afterwards, and … *shrug* … they’re still cunts.” This got a big laugh, which froze when he said, “No, I’m serious. They’re cunts. It’s the only way they’ll get onto a pitch in shorts.”

                    LOL!

  26. The sports viewing public and the powers-that-be recognise the magnificence of his achievement. He ends the year as World Champion, SPOTY and a knight. Well deserved.

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