So Hertfordshire’s most famous recent export only managed to sit on the throne for one season – his fault, Ron’s fault, Woking’s fault, Pussycat Dolls splitting up’s fault?
Whatever Lewis Hamilton imagined would happen in his 2009 title defending season, I’ll be willing to bet his fantasies didn’t include his fellow countryman becoming World Champion and Hamilton himself doing donuts in celebration of 16th place at his home Grand Prix, the venue where 12 months before he’d given a true champion’s drive en route to his maiden title.
But that’s Lewis Hamilton all over, isn’t it? No, not that he loves to spin the car continuously in a circle like a tool when his team make a dog of a chassis, but that he never seems to take the accepted or predictable route towards anything in his career - be it from his McLaren supported junior days as a foetus to dating someone old and irritating enough to be his Mum to the bizarre and heart stopping method chosen to win the whole thing a year on.
Coming off spanking his dictionary definition of underwhelming team mate and indeed all of the field bar Felipe Massa, nobody but the staunchest of Fernando Alonso fans would’ve risen an eyebrow at assuming Hamilton would, if not sweep to another title, then at least be in the running.
With big regulation changes including a switch to slick tyres and the introduction of KERS technology expected to benefit those with big budgets to fund its utterly pointless black hole R&D, Queen Lizzy herself was probably preparing to upgrade Hamilton to the 1st class cabin in the form of a knighthood. Like most plans and predictions in F1 however, this one did not go to plan. At all.
It was very obvious during winter testing when McLaren was nowhere and Brawn were at the top that something was up, particularly with the same V10 lump Hamilton was using in the back of Jenson Button’s motor meant nobody from Woking could point a finger accusingly at Big Norbs.
Come Melbourne, Hamilton MBE swept home in qualifying to a wonderful 15th, but in the race thanks to a combination of tactics, craft and not crashing like a turkey into others, he’d managed to drag himself up to 3rd place. However there was a slight issue with this respectable 6 points in that he’d sort of lied his way onto the smallest step on the podium.
The whole affair would take me precisely 17.3 years to summarise, but the point is it did not do Hamilton or McLaren any favours, particularly new principal Martin Whitmarsh who could’ve done without the added turbulence to a team already negotiating a shaky start. Some called the whole Liegate debacle Hamilton’s fault, though in his defence, on the radio he told the truth (as he hadn’t been briefed to do otherwise) and the lies began after his race manager told him to do so.
So I’ll stick my neck on the line nobody either cares about or has intention of chopping off and state that Hamilton was more naive than a calculating and malicious little cretin in listening to Ryan. Some would say Hamilton is a man of independent thoughts and can make his own decisions, but you have to think of the circumstances – a manager of your team comes up to you, who you greatly respect, who is of many a senior year to you, who you owe your success to and says to follow their instructions.
Throw in that unlike the calculated Crashgate, this was all conducted in the space of 2 minutes and the result had already happened and hadn’t been purposely pre-mediated and manipulated, and I think we can dismiss calls to deport Hamilton to Texas for lethal injection. What Ryan was thinking when he thought the FIA didn’t record radio transmissions is anyone’s guess. In any event, Ryan was pushed very firmly onto his sword and McLaren went back to being nowhere near spraying Mumm in ways begging to be photoshopped in the way a year 8 student may deface their anatomy textbook.
McLaren’s problem – and so by extension, Hamilton’s – was that they’d seemingly spent so long constantly developing their 2008 challenger to fend off the Brazilian midget that they’d totally forgot to even design a 2009 car. When Paddy Lowe eventually woke up from spinning round in his office chair and Neil Oatley stopped play miniature golf in his office, the two of them got together, cobbled together something resembling an F1 car in the wind tunnel and were rumoured to have instantly simultaneously muttered upon the car’s testing debut, “bugger.”
The MP4-24 was designed around running a KERS, which everyone was assumed to be using, however in the end it turned out only those who weren’t skint would bother with it, much to Brawn and Red Bull’s amusement as the season turned out. Housing the elephant in the room KERS in an F1 compromises aerodynamics, cooling and weight distribution, particularly harming laptimes at tracks with very twisty characteristics (e.g. Monaco, no space to use the system) or open circuits (e.g. Silverstone, few places to recharge the system or take advantage of its power boost).
Having invested more money in KERS than a UK taxpayer has in Northern Rock, McLaren plodded on with KERS and a car so crap they even ran aero paint applied by a child to try and work out where exactly the car was most poo. Hamilton’s car not being armed with a DDD (double decker diffuser – not a 3D version of a Duran Duran album) made things even worse, but then the one event of the season came up where he felt he had a chance, where aerodynamics didn’t matter, where diffusers were as redundant as 11% of the Americans are today, where supermodels seek out greasy playboys called Vincenzo and Jean-Pierre – Monaco.
The practice sessions had gone excellently for Hamilton, for once this season he looked like his 2008-self as driver ability rose to the surface above equipment as it often does around the streets of posh people’s driveways. Heck, he was so confident that he even blinged his helmet. Come qualifying though, Hamilton shafted himself with a driver error made all the more painful by the fact he was not under any great pressure at the time.
Trying in Q1 to navigate the positively cambered Mirabeau, Hamilton asked too much of his Bridgestones and almost ploughed into a hotel and that was Goodnight Vienna – 16th on the grid lead to 12th in the race, not exactly as good as last year.
To Hamilton’s or whoever media trained him’s credit, he never kicked off in the press about how badly the season was going or his green envy for Button. Embarrassment followed embarrassment, almost culminating in being passed around the outside by another Brazilian surname in Piquet at Turkey. Two weeks later however things got even worse at his home Grand Prix.
Having arrived expecting lavish amounts of sympathy, car #1 and its pilot were instead treated to a wonderful demonstration of bandwagoning as half of England bought Brawn GP merchandise and piled their support behind some beardy bloke most people had given up on around 2001. Insult to injury followed as Hamilton qualified 19th, yes, even behind his rubbish teammate and worse still, Piquet.
Struggling home to 16th in the race meant Hamilton privately went back to Whitmarsh and his Barry White voice and demanded the updates be brought forward for the next race in Germany. Unfortunately he did a Monaco again.
Realising like when circulating the Principality he had equipment that befitted his abilities, Hamilton became overexcited again and tried to go from 5th to 1st at the start – in the end he went from 1st to the pit lane in the space of that opening lap with a puncture.
If there’s a criticism that can be levelled at Hamilton it’s that he needs to know when to play the percentage game in the way Alonso does and Michael Schumacher did – you don’t need to win every race to win a title, just ask Keke Rosberg. Unlike China 2007 though, this snatching at a better result didn’t ultimately cost him the title, just an opportunity to get back – legally – onto the podium. He didn’t have to wait long though for that to happen.
Either McLaren managed to fully get on top of KERS integration and their DDD or Lowe and Oatley managed to stop spinning/golfing for a second and realise they’d over tightened the wheel nuts all season because at Hungary, the traditionally happy hunting ground for Brits, Hamilton led the field over the line.
McLaren’s breathtaking demonstration of resources to right the initial wrongs of the MP4-24 were no flash in the pan as Hamilton took home four more podiums before the season ended, including losing 3rd in an incredible battle to the flag with Button on the last lap at Monza which was a demonstration of determination or stupidity depending on your views of Hamilton.
So what can we surmise from Lewis Hamilton’s season spent mainly in the gutter? Well apart from the fact that if it wasn’t obvious before, he should now definitely never consider a career in PR, 2009 for me personally saw Hamilton drive better than he has ever done before. Whereas in 2007/2008 arguably had if not the best car, certainly one of the strongest, 2009 will have taught him how to manage not just a car but also a team that has lost its rudder somewhat and steer it back to the top. It will also have provided him hunger for a strong 2010 campaign.
Formula 1 has always been about the car, but particularly so in 2009 where the field spread is so slight that the deficit a driver can make up for in a cars technical deficiencies has been diminished since the good old days of the early 90s. In spite of this, Hamilton has to use the technical term, mullered Heikki Kovalainen to the point of unemployment in 2010 and drove in the 2009 Brazilian Grand Prix what I consider drive of the season by going from 18th to 3rd – Kovalainen started ahead of Hamilton and wound up 12th.
What most impressed me about Hamilton in 2009 though was his mental resilience, it was very, dare I be a cliché F1 pundit but sod it, Schumacheresque in 1996 the way that even when he knew he was driving a nail, he didn’t mouth off to the press or more importantly sulk. He also didn’t lose any of his ability in the way James Hunt seemed to after his 1976 title and as soon as Whitmarsh finally delivered a car that wasn’t offensive to his talents, Hamilton did what he was paid the big bucks for and produced accordingly.
For 2010 nobody will be using KERS and McLaren have confirmed they started on the MP4-25 a long time before rival teams’ equivalent, so I expect McLaren’s strong momentum in the final third of F1 2009 to continue into 2010. Yes, Hamilton can be a bit smarmy and come across a bit fake, his girlfriend is irritating, his Dad probably gets too involved but he’s a damned good driver who is probably the fastest of all on outright pace.
King for a day? Of course not. I wouldn’t get too comfy in that chair, Jenson.
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In conclusion, I have no answers.
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I still think he has been a lot less vocal about how pants his car has been than people like Kubica who got a gob on in 2008 when BMW just tailed off development a bit, never mind given him an absolute rotter of a car like McLaren gave Hamilton. In conclusion, I also have no answers, nor indeed any quotes on that Kubica comment.
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@Maurice
I guess Germany opening lap was open to interpretation, though I'd have to say diving down the outside of someone who was obviously a volatile little so and so (he'd just chucked a Brawn almost into the wall) probably wasn't the smartest move ever, it almost worked but equally, it didn't .... Hamilton seems to live by decisions that either make him look a God or very silly. We'd all be praising his never say die attitude if he'd passed Button on the last lap of Monza but in the end most of us are calling him a bit of a willy. -
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