WILL LEWIS TURN TO DARK ARTS?
Formula One Special
LEWIS HAMILTON has far more to lose than the Formula One world title here today. And if he follows the advice of the schemers and plotters in the bulb-lit paddock he will do so by playing a game that compromises his name.
That is to say he will back Nico Rosberg into the Red Bulls and Ferraris behind and hope that his only rival for his sport’s greatest prize will become ensnared in the pack.
Such a policy might be shrewd. It is certainly legal. It may even deliver what he needs from the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: a swing of 12 points, the margin by which Rosberg leads heading into the 21st and final round of the season.
Rosberg only has to finish third to be assured of his first title and, by qualifying second, a place behind Hamilton, he set himself up nicely to see his master-plan through to its completion. Only something strange can stop his glory run.
Here former racer Jonny Herbert raised the prospect of Hamilton, the defending champion, possibly employing the ‘dark arts’ by pushing Rosberg into a melee.
Let us hope he is not won over to any such tactic. Hamilton has accumulated his dazzling reputation by racing from the front, attacking every corner with gusto, opening up huge leads. To surrender that for a mere world title is not to be celebrated.
A mere world title? Yes, when set alongside a hard-won, life-defining status as a true racer.
How much more stylish to blast away as if to say to the watching world: look who, when given a fair break, is the supreme performer.
We should remember the example of Sir Stirling Moss, who campaigned for Mike Hawthorn not to be disqualified from the 1958 Portuguese Grand Prix, an act of sportsmanship that cost him the title. Hawthorn became the first British Formula One champion, instead, by a point. But Moss’s behaviour ennobled him and the world championship itself.
Perhaps here, under the twinkling lights of an island built by petro- dollars, next to an illuminated hotel where a drink costs about the price of a flat in Chelsea, they do not give a fig for warming stories about old Stirling. But maybe one man understands the point more than anyone else who patrolled the paddock last night. It is, we hope, Lewis Hamilton.
He said: ‘When I’ve been leading I have always just tried to get as far ahead as possible. Plus here, while in theory it sounds as if it makes a lot sense [to press Nico into the bunch], it’s not very practical with two long DRS zones [overtaking areas], so it wouldn’t be very easy or very wise to do it. So no.’
If Hamilton is as good as his word, he will blast ahead and, should Rosberg crash or suffer a mechanical failure, so be it. That
would be the luck — or ill-luck — of racing, just as it was when gremlins stymied Hamilton earlier in the season, most notably in Malaysia when he was driving beautifully before his engine went pop.
Neither man deserves to miss out. Hamilton is chasing his 10th victory. Rosberg is on nine. Nobody in F1 history has won more races and not waltzed to the title.
Alain Prost, the four-time world champion, said: ‘How can you separate them? But for one reason I really admire what Nico is doing. He has had to listen to the Press and the public tell him for years that he is not as good a driver as Lewis. I had that when I was up against Ayrton Senna. To have dealt with that, to have kept his resolve, to have found the necessary belief, is extraordinary.’
In a busy Mercedes hospitality area last night, Hamilton’s mother, Carmen, or Brenda to friends, hugged her boy as they met. She had watched qualifying from the garage at Lewis’s request. Had it been up to her, she would rather have followed the action in seclusion away from the close-up cameras.
She wore a relieved look when Hamilton took a commanding pole, his 12th of the season, three-tenths of a second quicker than Rosberg. The order had not been in doubt all afternoon, Hamilton’s speed through the final two sectors being decisively quick.
Rosberg had appeared edgy as qualifying began, making a couple of mistakes in his first run. But over at Mercedes, Toto Wolff, his team principal, thought Nico was ‘very calm’, adding that Hamilton was the one showing outward signs of mounting tension.
‘Lewis is shooting a bit,’ said Wolff. ‘He has said a few controversial things this weekend.’ This was seemingly a reference to Hamilton publicly bemoaning his engine headaches and the switching of his and Rosberg’s mechanics at the start of the season.
But Wolff reported that the scene in private between the drivers was cordial on the eve of their showdown. There had not been a repeat, he said, of Hamilton turning up late to debriefs, as he had here ahead of the decider two years ago.
The triple champion was in benign and easy-going mood last night. He described his mother Carmen as his best friend and said he would carry with him his father Anthony and his step-mother Linda, watching at home in Hertfordshire, in his heart today. Carmen, for her part, intends to split her viewing time between the garage and the paddock today, husbanding her nerves as she hopes for something unexpected.
Before she left last night she looked up to the sky and wondered aloud what He upstairs had in store. She hoped Lewis would retain the title, of course, but when it was put to her that winning the race in glory carried a distinction of its own — regardless of the broader picture — she agreed.
‘Maybe the title doesn’t mean everything,’ she shrugged.
Mother knows best.