He’s so vain: The world of Lewis Hamilton
British driver earns plaudits for stand
COMMENT cockpit like a man who would have preferred a few tunes on the radio and said: ’’Paddy, I’m feeling quite comfortable right now.’’
And so pandemonium broke loose in the Mercedes garage. This was potential sabotage. And the Bavarian burgermeisters don’t do insubordination.
Team boss Toto Wolff, a strange hybrid of Dorothy’s little dog and something big and bad, said: ‘‘Anarchy does not work in any team and any company.’’
No, but it works on television. Who would you rather watch? Lewis Hamilton or Nico Rosberg? Nic Kyrgios or John Isner? There is something preposterously fascinating about these young adults whose growth spurt was entirely devoted to their egos.
There is a novel called the Mighty Walzer by Howard Jacobson about a young Jewish table tennis player. It won the 2010 Booker prize. In it the hero, Oliver Walzer, professes to be a devoted student of the ‘‘illness of winning’’.
He says, ‘‘I watch it day in and day out on television. I know the personalities – just like my grandfather did. Nastase, Mcenroe, Navratilova, Coe, Christie, Lewis, Budd, Klinsmann, Cantona, every member of every Australian cricket team, Tyson, Eubank, Ballesteros, Norman, Hill, Schumacher, Curry, Cousins, Torvill, Dean. A roll call of the psychotic. It’s like having television cameras rolling day and night in an asylum. Me me me me me me me me me me me me. And I am transfixed as anybody. I can’t get enough. It’s like seeing your own soul out there, your own pumping heart, blood-red like meat in a butcher’s shop, charging around in shorts and running shoes.’’
Hamilton could have been the only name on the list if Walzer lived in later times.
In this kingdom of the mad, Hamilton is King. Even if Rosberg won the world championship, it didn’t count. Hamilton said: ’’If he is labelled world champion, it doesn’t necessarily mean that is the way it is labelled in my heart.’’
Mercedes took away Hamilton’s engineers, they sabotaged his engine. It wasn’t his fault. Not when you live in Kardashian world. Cos Lewis went to see Kanye at his house, ‘‘and he goes; ‘You know, you’re just like me, me and you are very much the same’.’’
Nice juxtaposition of ‘me’, Kanye, but flail me with scorpion tails, I interrupted you. And sorry, Lewis, it’s your story, you carry on.
‘‘Kanye said: ’I’m big in the music world but I’m trying to do For all the headlines screaming ‘anarchy’, Lewis Hamilton’s public act of defiance against Mercedes in Formula One’s title-deciding Abu Dhabi Grand Prix could ultimately make racing even more exciting in 2017.
While Mercedes boss Toto Wolff refused to rule out punishment after Hamilton did everything he could to scupper team-mate Nico Rosberg’s championship chances in Monday’s showdown, he recognised he was in two minds about what to do.
The Austrian said he would sleep on the controversy but he also wondered whether there might be a case for giving the drivers more freedom to race rather than seeking to control them.
That, after a 21-round season in which Mercedes were more dominant than ever with 19 wins and 20 poles and won both titles for the third year in a row, could prove a more popular outcome.
While some condemned Hamilton’s strategy in slowing the race, in a failed bid to help others catch and pass Rosberg who needed to finish on the podium to become champion, others applauded him for transforming what could have been a processional one-two into a tense spectacle.
‘‘Well done to @Lewishamilton for a relentless pursuit of the title, keeping us on the edge of our flaming pants right up to the last
what I love in fashion and people don’t like it. You’re big in your racing world but you love your music, and people will probably struggle to accept that. You need to do what you love and not give a f**k about what anyone thinks’.
‘‘Ultimately, we shouldn’t feel like we need to shrink ourselves for other people to feel comfortable. Kanye’s outspoken, to say the least. I love that. He’s electrifying in everything he does.
‘‘I wish I could be that outspoken, I really do. But I’m signed to all these brands that have an idealistic image that they wish to be connected with, so I need to be careful. Don’t talk to me about lap,’’ declared 1996 world champion Damon Hill on Twitter.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, who rarely misses a chance to undermine Wolff, said he would have expected nothing less and accused Mercedes of being ‘naive’ in asking Hamilton to speed up, instructions the driver ignored.
‘‘I think Lewis was trying to back us up and I probably would have done the same,’’ agreed Horner’s Dutch driver Max Verstappen. ‘‘You have to try these things to win a championship.’’
Rosberg, championship secured, could also see both sides of the argument. ‘‘It’s really easy to understand the team’s side. But at the same time of course you can understand Lewis because this is the world championship,’’ he said.
From outside Formula One, former England soccer striker Gary Lineker added his support: ‘‘Don’t get @Lewishamilton criticism. Why wouldn’t he give himself the best chance to succeed?’’, he asked on Twitter.
‘‘Attempting to win is the very essence of sport. All leading sports persons ignore advice from the sidelines on occasions. To be the best you have to think you know best.’’
From Hamilton’s perspective he had merely done what he had to do.
‘‘I don’t feel I did anything unfair. We’re fighting for a championship, I was in the lead, I control the pace. That’s the rules,’’ he said.
what I can and can’t do. I define who I am, I’m not defined by what people say. I might be in ten different countries in a week, but I’ll turn up at the track and kill it.’’
You see, you start writing about a Formula One race, and you end up talking about Lewis, the man who put the ‘me’ in team. He’s the man who put the rat in prat. It’s hard not to run into the room when Mr Me is revving at full throttle.
Oh, and by the way, Hamilton was quite within his racing and sporting rights to back Rosberg up. But that was never really the point. We just couldn’t take our eyes off the Me Machine.