LEWIS: A BLACK MAN COULDN’T HAVE RACED FANGIO
LEWIS HAMILTON touched on the most extraordinary part of his journey towards emulating Juan Manuel Fangio’s five world titles by saying a black man could not have raced in the Argentine’s era. The Mercedes star needs to score eight points more than Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel in Sunday’s US Grand Prix to clinch the quintet with three rounds to spare. That would be a remarkable feat for the first mixed-race driver to penetrate the whitedominated enclave of Formula One. Asked about Fangio, Hamilton said: ‘He is the godfather of our sport. He is one of the greats from the beginning, so he will always be admired. ‘It is crazy to think that I am embarking on winning a similar number of championships. I don’t know if the Fifties were particularly a good time — certainly it wasn’t a good time for black people. We probably wouldn’t have been racing back then. ‘I am grateful to be in this era with the technology we have now. ‘I have driven some of those old cars, like Sir Stirling Moss’s Silver Arrow around Monza, which is pretty intense. ‘It is always strange to hear the driver’s mental philosophy back then. Sir Stirling would say you hope you get thrown out of the car if you crash. We want to be stuck in and stay safe.’ Fangio won the first of his five world titles in 1951. It was not until four years later that Hamilton’s grandparents moved from Grenada to London. Hamilton made his own trip to America last weekend to fulfil sponsor obligations in New York. He arrived in Austin to rain, which is expected to continue today. Sitting next to Hamilton in the press conference, Fernando Alonso was willing to place his peer in a historical context. The Spaniard endured a poisonous season at McLaren alongside the then rookie in 2007, but said Michael Schumacher, Fangio, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Hamilton came to mind as his top five drivers of all time. ‘If one driver had to equal Fangio in our generation, I am happy it should be Lewis, because he has the talent and the commitment,’ said Alonso. ‘He’s won in good cars and not so good.’