Pushed to the Max, Lewis will always come out fighting
HOW selfless of Lionel Messi to take a £200m pay cut to stay on at Barcelona – although magnanimous gestures are easier when you are still taking home £200m afterwards.
Lewis Hamilton is not the fighter he once was. His domination of Formula One over the past few seasons has dulled his competitive instincts. Presented with a genuine rival for once in Max Verstappen, he rolled over and had his tummy tickled. Hence why he trails by 32 points heading into the British Grand Prix. Bernie Ecclestone’s take on Hamilton’s reversing manoeuvre this season is an interesting one. The logical extension of it is that the race for the title is already over. Hamilton has already accepted his lot. Congratulations are due to the flying Dutchman.
The theory ignores one salient point, though. If Hamilton was no longer up for the fight why would he have signed a two-year contract extension with Mercedes a fortnight ago?
He does so at a period when the team’s future as the pre-eminent force in F1 looks less certain than it has been for years. The Red Bull surge this season has changed the equation and the radical redesigns across the sport from next year, combined with cost controls, place a big question mark over who will hold the whip hand going forward.
Mercedes have concentrated their energies and their cash on the new car and they may push on again, but there are no guarantees. If Hamilton was running on empty, if the fires were really out, this would be an easy time to walk away.At 36, he has no need to chase the cash.
The reality is that Hamilton has run into a so-far insurmountable problem this season in Verstappen and Red Bull – a winning combination of exceptional driver and superior car.
It is strange to see anyone else but Hamilton at the top of the standings, but to conclude from that his fight has gone is to misread the room.
Had Hamilton given up the ghost, the advantage he has held over the man with the same machinery,Valtteri Bottas, would have diminished but the
Briton continues to dominate that particular race within a race.
The renewed jeopardy brought by Verstappen is not only just what F1 needs but also what Hamilton needs at this stage of his career. If there was any danger of his racing instincts being dimmed it will have brought matters to a sharp focus.
A final career challenge, up there with any he has faced in a sporting sense, with the prize of surpassing Michael Schumacher’s title haul at the end of it, will concentrate the mind.
Hamilton may succeed in that legacy-defining quest or he may not but anyone who questions his battling qualities has not been paying attention.This is the council house kid from Stevenage who had everything stacked against him from the start, remember.
You can change the circumstances but you can’t change the man. He remains a fighter to his core.