MERC ACE HAMILTON PUSHES HIS LIMITS AT FULL TILT
The five-time British world champion is ‘juggling multiple balls’ to ensure he has a life after retirement, writes Ian Parkes
Lewis Hamilton described this year as magical, winning his fifth Formula One world title and leading his Mercedes team to their fifth consecutive championship, but he also issued a surprisingly ominous warning. “I don’t have energy in abundance,” he said in an interview before this month’s Brazilian Grand Prix. “I definitely feel right now that this has been the longest year of my life.”
Hamilton, 33, added: “I’m operating on a level where, if I wasn’t conscious of it, then I could easily burn out. I’m conscious I’m not far from that peak.”
He has now equalled the five titles won by Juan Manuel Fangio in the 1950s; only Michael Schumacher, with seven, has won more. A record that was considered untouchable when Schumacher retired in 2012, is within Hamilton’s reach, especially now that he has signed with Mercedes through 2020.
But with increasing demands on his personal time — he introduced a clothing line in September that sent him to Shanghai and New York between the Italian and Singapore Grands Prix — Hamilton knows he is pushing himself.
“I’ve moved things around in my life to do certain things more than others,” said Hamilton, whose paternal grandfather, Davidson Hamilton, died in October, a few days before he clinched the title by finishing fourth in the Mexican Grand Prix. “It’s worked in some ways, but you can easily burn out.
“I often tell my assistant to shift this or that, to give me this time back, in order to protect myself,” he added. “I’m doing so much. There’s no driver in history, I’m sure, that is doing as much as I’m doing.”
By the conclusion of today’s season-ending race in Abu Dhabi, Hamilton will have started in 229 Grands Prix over 12 seasons, 62 of those in the last three years. It took Fangio eight seasons to reach his 51.
Hamilton’s outside interests, which include fashion and music, are to ensure that he has a life beyond Formula One when he retires from racing. He recognises what he has taken on, but it is still a balancing act.
“None of my other interests are set in stone,” Hamilton added. “I still have to keep building those, while holding on to Formula One, which is really hard. When I started Formula One, that’s all there was. Now I’m juggling multiple balls, and I could drop them at any point.
“It’s not fear of failure, but I have the same commitment, determination, that drive for perfection, of not making mistakes, for my other interests as I do for Formula One. I’m so competitive.
“So how do you keep balancing this job, as strong as it is, but also doing these other things to ensure they thrive? It’s about putting great people around you, and I’ve great people around me.”
While a team of more than 1,000 at Mercedes has helped propel Hamilton to his latest success, he has also achieved a level of excellence this season rarely seen in Formula One. He made few errors on the track.
Toto Wolff, the Mercedes motor sport boss, described Hamilton as “the differentiator” after he secured the title in Mexico City, especially because there was a widely held view that Ferrari had the best car at many of the races.
“This is the best Lewis Hamilton I have seen in the last six years,” Wolff said. “He has driven better, and he has been better out of the car. Very, very complete, with his biggest strength keeping calm and holding his nerve.
“We had times when the car was good enough to win and times when the car was not good enough to win. But he was very stable.”
Wolff described the qualities that Hamilton possesses and that separate him from his peers.
“It’s the ability to combine talent with hard work, intellect and emotional intelligence,” he said.
“All great champions have all four of them. If one is missing, you can still be a successful racing driver, but you are never going to achieve this greatness.”
Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari, who is in second place in the driver standings and was also in contention to win his fifth title, was magnanimous in defeat, acknowledging that Hamilton had been the better driver.
Vettel, 31, went into the Mercedes garage in Mexico to congratulate the staff and also sought out Hamilton to offer a personal tribute.
“I think he drove superb all year,” Vettel said. “I told him it was well deserved and to enjoy it. I told him number five is something incredible.”
Hamilton concedes the almost flawless nature of his campaign caught even him by surprise. In contrast, Vettel made numerous errors, none greater than in what proved to be a pivotal race in Germany, his homeland, where he slid off the track in wet conditions while leading. Hamilton had been in 14th place but still won.
Over his career, he has also taken the pole position a record 82 times.
“This year the races have been my real specialty,” he said. “They have always been really strong for me anyway, but I don’t recall leaving on a Sunday after a race this year wishing I’d done something differently or drove differently.
“I often felt: ‘Wow! I gave it everything. I don’t think I could have done it better.’ That’s different from many other seasons, and they probably weren’t terrible performances, but they could have been erratic.
“I don’t feel there has been an ounce of erraticism in my recent driving. If you can keep the erraticism under control, that’s a great thing. Whereas qualifying was up and down for a period of time. I wasn’t happy with it for a while, but then I started to hit it on the head. When it came together there were really special moments.”
Wolff said “there is more to come” from Hamilton “as long as he is in a good car and he continues to enjoy it in the way he does today,” and he continues to remain grounded.
Dismissing talk of Hamilton equaling Schumacher’s seven titles, Wolff said: “The reason he has won a fifth championship is that he concentrates on the job in hand and does not look too far away. Because before you win a seventh there is a sixth to win, and we haven’t scored a single point for that one.”
Hamilton is planning his first steps toward a sixth championship.
“This year has been magical, but there were still things I altered, small things — and I’m not going to say what they were — that have had a big impact,” he said.
“For next year, I already know there are certain things I’m going to change. It’s about the training, how you balance things, to get yourself ready. There are also different ways you push and pull with the team. There are so many areas I’ve been working on.
“It’s about me saying to Toto: ‘This is what you need from me, this is how you can get it, and what you need to put in place.’ It’s about making adjustments in order to create the right environment.”