Chalk up Hamilton’s bad mood to sour grapes
So you grab pole position at the season opener, climb the podium on race day and are met in the garage afterward by on-again girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger. Life’s pretty good, no? Not to mention, one of your key rivals for the Formula One championship concedes your car is better than his, putting you in prime position for this weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix and the rest of the F1 season.
So, why the long face on Lewis Hamilton?
There was no mistaking it in Australia on Sunday: Amid the spraying champagne and wide smiles of his podium cohorts, Hamilton looked like he had just seen a ghost.
Well, guess what – maybe he had.
After finishing third in Melbourne, Hamilton might have been staring at the ghost of 2011 – and it scared him stiff.
Last season marked the first time in Hamilton’s five years in F1 that he was beaten in the championship standings by his teammate, finishing fifth overall to Jenson Button’s second place. And there was Button again on Sunday, overtaking Hamilton off the starting line and never looking back, winning the first Grand Prix of the season and striking the first blow in the psychological war that exists in every F1 garage – whether it’s acknowledged or not.
What might have spooked Hamilton even more were the words of praise showered on Button by Mclaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh, who described the 32-year-old as “a driver at the top of his form.”
“He’s just got stronger and stronger,” Whitmarsh was quoted as saying in the Guardian of London. “He’s got such a mature, easy and laid-back manner that belies the underlying hunger to win that he has.
“He must now believe he’s in a good chance of a proper title run this year.” Boo! With his victory in Oz, Button pulled even with Hamilton with six race wins apiece since the former jumped to Mclaren two years ago in what was then widely re- garded as career suicide.
After all, Button had chosen to leave a team – then called Brawn – with which he had just won the championship to join one that had been grooming Hamilton since his early teens to be the face of the future. But look who’s smiling now. And look who’s moping.
Now, Mclaren has always prided itself on not playing favourites, and it’s too early to conclude Button has effectively snatched the No. 1 position there.
Australia was the first of 20 scheduled races in what promises to be a hotly contested 2012 championship, and there’s plenty of time for Hamilton to bounce back, beginning this weekend at Sepang.
He certainly has the car to do it, with even defending champion Sebastian Vettel acknowledging Mclaren has gained the upper hand on Red Bull “at the moment,” as he put it.
On Thursday, Hamilton said he aims to have another strong start to his Grand Prix weekend in Malaysia – but this time follow it through to the checkered flag on Sunday.
Looking back at Australia, “it was a weekend where I started on pole, and there were two or three things that went wrong in the race that were out of my control,” he told reporters, citing a clutch problem off the starting line for one.
“I felt I performed quite well and definitely would have liked to have had my car in a slightly different position in the set-up and race, but I will alter that this weekend so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
As for his sour mood on the podium, Hamilton said it was justified.
“I had just worked massively hard over the winter, harder than I ever worked, and the result of the race didn’t go the way I wanted it to,” he said.
“I think it was fair to be disappointed. I don’t feel that I should have to disguise that.”
Not at all. But you have to wonder what Hamilton, 27, should be more worried about: his bad day at the races, or his legacy?
His choice of words in the Guardian, as he explained his disappointment in Melbourne, is perhaps more telling:
“I don’t like going backwards in my career,” he said. On the tube: Live coverage of the Malaysian Grand Prix airs Saturday and Sunday beginning at 3:52 a.m. on RDS and TSN with repeats later both days. Check your listings.