D-Day in the desert
Can Lewis Hamilton really pull it off ?
The night before the world-title decider in 2014, here at the twinkling oasis of Yas Marina, Lewis Hamilton could not sleep. Too many tormenting thoughts, triggered both by the pressure of trying to win his first championship at Mercedes and the memory of the one he had lost at McLaren in 2007, flashed through his mind.
Last night he seemed positively Zenlike, his mood soothed by a wonderful flying lap that gave him the 61st pole position of his career and a precious advantage for this afternoon’s foot-tothe-floor duel with team-mate Nico Rosberg. “Maximum attack,” Mika Hakkinen used to say. It defines the approach Hamilton will need today. “I’m going to drive my heart out,” he said. Anything less than a victory and Rosberg can grasp a maiden title, as long as he finishes no worse than seventh.
It is a harsh equation for a driver who, ever since a botched start at Suzuka seven weeks ago, has been remorselessly dominant. Four straight poles, three straight wins: it is the form of a man who should have wrapped up this season’s duel by late summer.
And yet the robotic efficiency of Rosberg has thwarted him. Hamilton claims he will still feel proud of his efforts if, as expected, he falls fractionally short today. Such is his superiority complex towards his rival, though, he is certain to find it galling.
“I feel energetic, I feel confident about what I’m doing in the car,” he said. “It’s a much different scenario to 2014. The reason I wasn’t able to sleep then was because I had worked so hard, had more wins, and the double points system that year could just have thrown everything out of the window.”
Double points: those are two words sure to send a shudder through the paddock. The ruse of making the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix twice as valuable as any other was – rather like the farcical, elimination-style qualifying system trialled in Australia this year – one of those crazed Formula One ideas abandoned after just one race.
This time, the mathematics are more straightforward, if improbable. Hamilton must win and hope that Rosberg does not make the podium, which on the latest evidence is about as plausible as these two sworn adversaries sharing a warm embrace afterwards. Rosberg is so metronomic that he has qualified on the front row for 21 consecutive grands prix.
Much as Hamilton might try to ruffle him, arguing that he will still feel the moral victor irrespective of whether Rosberg prevails, the German inhabits a bubble all of his own. “I keep it simple,” he said last night, tersely. “I don’t think about the what-ifs.”
Hamilton might choose to show a dash of cunning. He will know, from how often he outperformed Rosberg in their karting days together, that one of his team-mate’s few weaknesses is in wheel-to-wheel racing. Should he lead after turn one and maintain a slender advantage over his pursuer, rather than streaking off into the desert sunset, he stands a chance of backing Rosberg into the path of Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo or, better still, the impetuous teenager, Max Verstappen.
It would be a Machiavellian tactic, but with no forecast for rain and the twisting Yas Marina circuit offering precious few opportunities for overtaking, it could be his only option. To his credit, he has so far displayed little appetite to take it, explaining that he wanted to preserve his reputation as a fair racer.
Toto Wolff, Mercedes’ head of motorsport, maintained that there would be no encouragement from the garage of any underhand approach. “We don’t want to change the rules,” he said. “It would be wrong to turn everything upside-down for the decider. The drivers are great sportsmen, and they know that overstepping the line would cause a lot of controversy.”
There is a reflective air about Hamilton this weekend, now that he has accepted that the outcome is outside his control. His mother, Carmen, has accompanied him to Abu Dhabi. He understands, at a deeper level, that periods of pre-eminence in F1 are finite, and that it is a luxury even to be fighting for the title. So, for all the relief at the end of a marathon 21-race season, he also felt some uncertainty. “It has been such a privilege driving this car,” he said. “You never know if you are going to have another one like it ever again.”
Hamilton would be well advised, at 31, to see out his career at Mercedes given their supremacy in the era of V6 engines. A triumph for either of the team’s drivers today would constitute their 51st win in 59 races.
Zak Brown, the American marketing guru now in charge at McLaren, indicated yesterday that he could be persuaded to sign Hamilton back to his former employers once his Mercedes contract runs out at the end of 2018, but this is remote to the point of dreams. The Silver Arrows have proved since 2014 that they are the masters of controlling the shifting sands of technology.
Hamilton, too, has one eye on immortality. A fourth title would lift him clear of Sir Jackie Stewart as Britain’s greatest F1 talent. Only four drivers – Michael Schumacher, Juan Manuel Fangio, Alain Prost and Sebastian Vettel – have been able to call themselves quadruple champions, and Hamilton is desperate to join them.
It is not as if he wants for motivation, either. He has been deeply affected lately by the death of Aki Hintsa, his doctor and mentor at McLaren, from cancer at the age of 58, and explained that the loss made him doubly determined to succeed today. “I am trying to focus on doing Aki proud,” he said.
There rarely seemed any question that he would surpass Rosberg in qualifying. When Hamilton has the inner peace and strength of purpose that he has exuded here he is demonstrably the quicker driver. So much so, indeed, that Rosberg was crestfallen at the threetenths of a second he was beaten by. “I came here to be on pole and to win the race,” he said. “So, I’m not ecstatic.”
Hamilton is faced today with a stark choice. Either he resigns himself to the likelihood that Rosberg will guard second place to be sure of the title, or he attempts to pep up the action by leaving the favourite at the mercy of the chasing pack. For the second time in three years, this is a tussle that will only be resolved at the last moment. It should be a compelling fight, and we can but hope that it will be a clean one, too.
‘It has been such a privilege driving this car. You never know if you are going to have another one like it’
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