Sun 9 Mar 2008
F1:2008 - Can Lewis go one better this season?
Posted by Craig under Formula 1 with the tags England • f1 • F1:2008 • Formula 1 • Lewis Hamilton • McLaren
Over the next couple of days, I’m going to have a quick look at the British drivers ahead of the 2008 Formula One season which starts next Sunday, 16th March. First up is Lewis Hamilton…
Where to start - at this time last year noone had any idea how Lewis Hamilton would cope with life in F1.
Sure, we had seen him racing superbly in GP2, and we knew Ron Dennis would have ensured Lewis was vprepared better then any rookie in F1 history so should his performances really have surprised us?
Suppose his season had happened in reverse - he made some terrible mistakes and errors in judgement in the final few races, and had they happened in the first races then not only would it have lessened the Hamilton-hype machine, I think they would also have been accepted better by everyone. He was a rookie, and these were the errors to be expected from a rookie - yet because he started the season so well, when the mistakes crept in people couldn’t believe it and perhaps we were all a bit hard on him for it.
From the outside it looked easy, just play it safe and score a couple of points at each race and the title was in the bag. As it happened he continued with the gameplan that had served him so well earlier on and continued to strive for the wins which ulitmately was his downfall as he pushed things too far.
He says he has learned from all this, and he better hope that he really has.
If he is ever lucky enough to find himself in that position again then he has to prove that he has matured enough to be able to drive as he needs to rather than in the manner he wants to. I’m not sure he would ever admit to having learned anything from last year’s teammate and year-long adversory, Fernando Alonso, but Alonso has always been the type to settle for second or third if that’s what he needs rather than to risk everything to go for an unneeded win.
What happens this season is not all down to Hamilton though of course, there are hundreds of variable to throw into the mix - how good are his opponents, mainly Ferrari? How good is his car, the McLaren? How much are the team affected by the ongoing court cases they are involved in? How will having a new teammate affect Hamilton and his standing within the team?
I can’t see Heikki Kovalainen’s arrival meaning that the McLaren team will suddenly switch allegiance from Lewis, I think he will continue to be the golden child in their eyes - and more importantly in Ron’s eyes.
But what happens if Ron Dennis really does step down as has been reported lately, where does that leave Lewis? Would he still feel the same affinity towards the team, and the team towards him?
Nothing ever stays the same, in F1 or in life, and it’s impossible to second guess how these changes will affect things so we will have to wait and see.
This is only his second season, but I still think this is a pretty important one for Hamilton. A failure to challenge for the title, whether it’s his fault or the team’s, wouldn’t be welcomed by the British public and press, both of whom could easily turn against him. Most of the F1 followers I know were a bit sick of him by the end of last season anyway, or at least sick of the hype and constant coverage of his every move, so hopefully his “people” will have taken stock over the winter and seek to calm this down a bit.
Even if he is challenging for the title, if it ends in failure again then that could also pose problems for the driver who is seen as the one who could emulate or even surpass Michael Schumacher’s amazing career. Of course the one result which would satisfy everyone would be for him to go one better and actually claim the crown for himself this year.
Can he do it? Of course he can - but will he? I’m not so sure, I still think the Ferraris will be the cars to beat - and of the two drivers I think Kimi will be the one who deals with the changes better so I think he will retain his title. As for Lewis, I can see him repeating his second place again too which for most people would be a welcome result - but given the hype that surrounds this young man, it may not be seen as good enough.
March 10th, 2008 at 10:29 am
I agree with much of what you say, and hope that Lewis learns from last year. But I really don’t think it was all his fault that he failed in China and Brazil. He probably knew he should have come in earlier in China with worn out tyres, but wasn’t it his team who kept him out? Will we ever know the real truth? Also, he would have won the WDC if his gearbox hadn’t failed for 32 seconds in Brazil - how did that happen? He obviously wasn’t to blame for that - he was making his way back through the field and could have got to a position where he would have got enough points to win the WDC, but then he lost power. That had never happened in the previous 16 races. I am still suspicious as to what happened there, but again, will we ever really know? Was it just an unfortunate technical failure or something more sinister?
As for the hype making people hate him - that just makes me feel sick. It’s hardly his fault if the media hype him. He has a microphone stuck in front of his face all the time, he has to say something or appear rude. How can “his people” prevent the media from taking an interest in him? His move to Switzerland went some way to get him out of the public eye and yet he was criticised for that too. I don’t blame him for leaving England; for far from being popular here as Alonso is in Spain with all the hype I’m sure he gets there, Lewis seems really unpopular. Never mind, he has some dedicated fans like me, who will support him wherever he ends up in 2008!
March 10th, 2008 at 10:54 am
A Parker » Thank you for taking the time to reply!
I’m sure last year as Lewis’s first season in F1 probably all passed by in a bit of a blur. We don’t get to see the half of what a driver has to go through with sponsors events, training and the like so although we had plenty of time to think about what Lewis should have done at each race it may simply have been the case that he was too caught up in other stuff to get his head around what actually needed to be done. I’m sure he was probably being offered advice from everyone and anyone as well which is often not a great help either!
If we could trust teams and drivers to always tell the truth about why certain incidents occur then I’m sure we would have the answer to what happened in Brazil by now - but too often we find out that someone has told a little fib to cover up a mistake or whatever so even when we are told the truth we don’t believe it and that’s a shame. At first glance it seemed Lewis made a mistake by pressing the wrong button on his steering wheel which reset the car’s gearbox but this has been refuted by the team so I guess we have to take their word for that. If so, Lewis was extremely unlucky in that case - although he perhaps wouldn’t have been putting so much strain on the gearbox had he not been too adventurous from the start!
Also, the Brazil result would have been null and void had the Chinese GP gone better for him. I think the situation with the tyres is that the team have a certain amount of data about the state of the car as well as what the weather forecast is and try to manage things that way - they then offer a choice to the driver based on that data and ultimately it’s up to the driver to decide what to do. After all it’s he who knows best what the track is really like, how dry it is etc.
With the situation Lewis and the team were in, I think ultimately everyone was scared of being the one who made the wrong call and in the end they were all wrong by noone making any call whatsoever!
As for the press, I don’t think you can win with them to be honest. ITV for example can make as many documentaries and features about Lewis as they like without Lewis’s permission so perhaps he isn’t to blame there, but I wonder if anyone has had a quiet word and asked them to cut it down a bit. Who knows if they would listen though! My main “anger” is aimed at the press though and not Lewis, so we’ll all hope he has a quieter year off-track than last.
March 10th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Thanks for that Craig - whatever, the 2008 season is nearly upon us and I for one, cannot wait. I am such a huge Lewis fan, I don’t know if I will even be able to watch the actual race in Melbourne and might have to tape it and only watch it if he does well.
March 10th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
A Parker » It has been a long time coming round, but I too am excited that the new season is here!
You can’t beat watching a race live though, so I’d encourage you to do it - even if Lewis doesn’t fare so well there isn’t the drama and tension that comes with the races later in the year! I’m sure he will do well again this year though, he is a good driver in a good team and over the season that will ensure he is up there challenging for the title again.