OUTSTANDING

... but as he closes in on title, Lewis is told Fangio and Clark were better

WATCHING from home in Switzerland as Lewis Hamilton goes for his fourth world championship will be the legend whose record as statistically the greatest British driver is under siege.

Hamilton may already have dwarfed Sir Jackie Stewart’s number of race victories — 61 to 27 — but for 44 years no home-grown talent has surpassed the three titles the Scotsman won in a more dangerous era between 1969 and 1973.

Should Hamilton, 32, convert his 59-point lead over Sebastian Vettel into impregnable glory in today’s US Grand Prix, the record books will rate the younger Brit as the most successful driver we have produced.

Stewart (inset) and Hamilton can hardly be called bosom buddies — indeed, their relations are frosty, the protocol-observant Stewart compared to the iconoclastic Hamilton — so how highly does the old sage estimate the abilities of the racer who will eclipse him?

‘Only time will tell how highly he stands in the pantheon,’ said Stewart. ‘You have to remember that there are now 20 grands prix a season whereas before there might only be 11.

‘When you are talking about Stirling Moss and Jim Clark and Graham Hill and even myself, we competed in so many different categories. I did 53 races in one year in 23 different racing cars.

‘We learned various ways of driving and it all added to our personal abilities. It was different then. We travelled together, we socialised together, we holidayed together.

‘Lewis is driving a dominant car and it is hard to say, for example, that he is a better driver than Moss, who never won a world championship. It is impossible to draw comparisons. All you can say is that, right now, Lewis is at the absolute peak of his abilities. He is the best at the moment, along with Sebastian Vettel.

‘Juan Manuel Fangio is the greatest of all time in my mind and Jim Clark was certainly the finest racing driver I ever competed against.

‘I would put those two at the very top. Alain Prost would be next, ahead of Ayrton Senna, because he was Mr Cool. He knew that to finish first, first you had to finish. Michael Schumacher is on the list. So is Niki Lauda.

‘I would like to say there is a group of people who were outstanding — and Lewis is on that list.’ Stewart, 78, admits he speaks only rarely to Hamilton, having never struck up a friendly relationship, something he puts down to their never having lived in the same country for long. He has a more cordial affiliation with Vettel, whose title hopes seemed to have evaporated through various technical problems at Ferrari in recent races. It is a familiar story and one that perplexes Stewart. ‘Ferrari have been an anomaly since I was a wee boy,’ he said. ‘They have pretty much more money than anyone else and more history. But they have peaks and troughs of performance. They have done best when they had tough drivers.

‘There are four examples. Fangio drove for Ferrari and was a winner. When John Surtees drove for them, he won a championship and he was a tough man. Jody Scheckter, too, was someone who would not take no for an answer.

‘And finally there was Michael Schumacher, who told Ferrari that, if they wanted him, they must bring in Jean Todt and Ross Brawn, top-line men who not only brought performance but reliability.

‘So it is a shame they have not provided more of a threat up to the last few races but that takes nothing away from Lewis and everything he has done.’