Party boy with the ruthless will to win

THERE is only one thing certain about someone who tells you how hard they party... they do not.

And that is Lewis Hamilton, now established as one of Formula One’s finest-ever drivers.

Hamilton has a penchant for telling us about his super-glamorous social life, posing with his private jet, hanging out with Rihanna in Barbados.

Maybe that is why public acclaim for his achievements is not as thunderous as it should be.

We like our sportsmen and women dedicated, we are impressed when their feats are based on a life of sacrifice.

But don’t be fooled by Hamilton’s image. You do not win five world championships while burning the candle at both ends.

With your 34th birthday coming up, you do not get even more dominant in your sport by overcooking your social life.

No elite sportsman or woman has been as driven, pardon the pun, as Hamilton over the last couple of decades.

Hamilton has won one BBC Sports Personality of the Year award and, if committed motor-sport fans mobilise their ranks this year, he might come out on top in December’s vote. But his popularity outside the petrolhead community is not blindingly obvious.

Being a tax exile does not help. Fact.

For someone who lives in Monaco, Hamilton plays the patriotic card a lot.

But today is purely about his sporting achievements, monumental sporting achievements.

Of course he is in the best car but speak to anyone with any sort of inside knowledge of Formula One and they will tell you Hamilton is, pound for pound, the most complete driver out there, simple as that.

His astonishing record in qualifying alone tells you that, just as his dominance over team-mates in the same car tells you that.

Put Hamilton and the field into wet conditions and the outcome is an inevitability.

Michael Schumacher’s numbers – an amazing 91 Grand Prix wins and seven Championships – might prove to be unbeatable but to secure a fifth world title puts him not just in the pantheon of motor racing greats but in the pantheon of British sporting greats.

And if he now actually decides to properly party after this achievement, no one could blame him.