LEWIS: THE FIVE KEYS TO FIVE
NOW HE’S SMOKED SEBASTIAN VETTEL IN TWO CONSECUTIVE TITLE FIGHTS LEWIS HAMILTON HAS STAKED HIS CLAIM TO BE KNOWN AS HIS GENERATION’S GREATEST GRAND PRIX DRIVER. BUT WHAT IS IT THAT MAKES HIM THIS ERA’S BEST OF THE BEST?
How Lewis unlocked the road map to becoming an F1 genuis
The past two seasons of Formula 1 were billed as the beginning of an epic battle for the ages, a struggle for supremacy between two mighty warriors of different creeds – one of sharp silver, the other of resplendent red – each with a viable claim to be known as the best driver on the grid.
This was Sebastian Vettel vs Lewis Hamilton; the four-time great against the three-time great. In the red corner: Vettel, whose success came early and gluttonously with Red Bull. Young, sharply focused, super-quick, brilliant at streaking off into the distance after yet another otherworldly qualifying lap. A natural heir to Schumacher if ever there was one, a brilliant German driver ensconced within the very team Michael had made his own two decades before. Vanquish his foe and Vettel could live his dream, and stake his claim to be considered one of the best of all time.
Standing in his way, over in the silver corner, was Lewis Hamilton – perhaps the greatest rookie driver Formula 1 has ever seen, champion in only his second season, but then starved of subsequent success until ditching Mclaren’s slowly sinking ship and joining ‘the Mercedes project’. Finally, Hamilton had found a place from which he could regularly achieve the results his prodigious abilities had always merited. Having seen off Nico Rosberg in two seasons out of three, and having pushed Rosberg so hard in the year he didn’t win that Rosberg quit racing entirely, the only thing that was left
standing between Hamilton and true greatness was Sebastian Vettel and a resurgent Ferrari.
We’ve now had two full seasons and 41 races of this modern clash of the titans, the results of which show it is Hamilton, not Vettel, who has risen best to the challenge of claiming F1’s throne of supremacy for himself. After equalling Juan Manuel Fangio’s five world titles, Hamilton is now the undisputed king of modern F1, and it is time for us to celebrate the key facets of his genius that have helped him make it so.
One thing Hamilton has never lacked is tremendous raw speed under pressure in qualifying, as evidenced by the pole position record he claimed from Schumacher in 2017. Lewis is also possessed of an almost supernatural prowess in wet conditions, which played a major role in turning this season’s championship tide against Vettel. But this is not just about being an unbelievably good driver. Hamilton’s genius lies in being able to produce consistently at key moments, and in finding ways to continually improve so that he is not outwitted by those intently focused on the target on his back.
Vettel’s own F1 career began on a similar trajectory, but he has arguably stagnated as Ferrari’s recent resurgence has
1
PURE DRIVING ABILITY
stalled. Hamilton seized the 2017 championship by the scruff of the neck after the summer break – winning five races as Ferrari capitulated. At the time, Hamilton said the latter part of that season was the highest level he’d yet reached in F1.
This season we’ve seen several more examples of Hamilton’s dazzling brilliance: the pole lap at Silverstone that left him physically shaking afterwards; blitzing the field in Singapore on Mercedes’ weakest circuit (leading team boss Toto Wolff to say it was the best qualifying lap he’d ever witnessed); destroying his rivals in the wet in Germany, winning from 14th on the grid as Vettel crashed; and beating the Ferraris to pole in Hungary and Belgium, again in wet conditions, finding grip where others, seemingly, could not.
These are the many impressive peaks, but perhaps Hamilton’s true brilliance lies in broadening his horizons, focusing on elevating the various minute details that can make his life easier and help him produce these peaks so consistently that they sometimes don’t even register.
“Since I’ve been in Formula 1 I’ve had the ability to drive like I do today,” says Hamilton. “But naturally every year you are always trying to raise the bar, trying to work on all areas: how you prepare, how you get yourself in the right mindset, how you deliver in the car with your feel, how you
learn to balance the car and risk versus reward, how you communicate with the guys who you work closely with, to extract the best from them. There are so many areas. For me personally, I’ve been the most centred this year, been the healthiest I’ve ever been and I’ve had more energy than I’ve ever had. Part of that, I’m sure, is being on a vegan diet. It’s been fantastic and I’m so happy I went that way. I wish I went there a long, long time ago.”
In maintaining the necessary intensity to win season after gruelling season, the extra energy Hamilton has found from being free to do his own thing and attack Formula 1 in his own particular way cannot be underestimated. It is surely a key component of the chemistry that has allowed the best to become even better.
2
SELF-BELIEF
Vettel is often rightly credited for being a driver with extraordinary capacity for mental resolve – someone who can bounce back from errors as if nothing happened. He would change nothing if he could relive Singapore ’17 all over again, because he argues he could never legislate for Kimi Räikkönen’s ballistic start from the second row of the grid. Similarly, crashing out of the lead of 2018’s German Grand Prix is simply framed as a small mistake with big consequences. Nothing to be done, just move on.
But this bravado cannot disguise the fact Vettel has cracked repeatedly under pressure. Four world championships or not, that must eat away at your self-confidence. It can also easily create the sort of downward spiral that we saw trap Vettel in the latter part of 2018. One mistake begets another, which begets another, and before you know it people are questioning your ability and saying you must be ‘out of sorts’.
Hamilton was prone to plenty of off days of his own in the past. Part of the reason Jenson Button rates Fernando Alonso most highly, of his former Mclaren team-mates, is that Fernando would never go missing in races in the way Lewis occasionally did. But the events of the past two seasons that have made Hamilton a five-time champion – in particular the way he and Mercedes have developed tricky cars to take control in the second part of each season – suggest Hamilton has evolved into a more robust, more relentless prospect, with greater capacity for digging deep and finding what’s needed to get the job done when things are going against him.
“Usually what happens in those scenarios is you overdrive,” Hamilton explains. “That comes with experience – not overdriving, letting it almost come to you a little bit in the car. Controlled overdriving is something I am able to do. We all overdrive at some points and it’s something I don’t feel I’ve done much this year. Maybe at the start of the year there were times when I might have been overdriving, to compensate for issues I was having with the tyres or whatever.”
All drivers must battle the urge to overcompensate for the limits their cars impose on them. As Hamilton admits, he is also guilty of trying too hard at times. This is a big part of the reason he has sometimes had trouble beating Valtteri Bottas when the Mercedes has not been at its best. What Hamilton does well now is to recognise this, limit the damage, and then grow stronger in step with the car. In each of the past two years, as Mercedes have added performance, it is Hamilton who has best extracted it while Vettel has struggled to limit the damage when Ferrari’s progress has stalled.
Vettel is guilty of destructive overdriving. Hamilton’s selfbelief perhaps affords him a greater measure of control.
3
SUPERIOR RACECRAFT
Hamilton’s capacity for brilliance in wheel-to-wheel situations is not only about his obvious ability to make things happen in races and pass rivals. Arguably Hamilton isn’t F1’s most spectacular overtaker – that honour probably belongs to Daniel Ricciardo. But Hamilton is right up there, and his judgement of risk versus reward in these situations is perhaps the most outstanding aspect of this element of his craft.
Hamilton demonstrated time and time again that he had Rosberg’s measure in this regard over the first three seasons of F1’s V6 era; Rosberg regularly came off second-best in their fights, occasionally overreaching in his efforts to bridge the gap. Vettel is often unfairly criticised for lacking racecraft, but on several occasions he got the better of Hamilton over the course of 2018 (in Austria, Mexico and for the win at Spa), and also successfully overtook Max Verstappen in Singapore, which suggests this is evidently unfair. But the litany of mistakes he’s also made this year have indicated he lacks Hamilton’s consistency and precision.
Perhaps the best example of the contrast between the two, and Hamilton’s seemingly superior skill, is Monza. Lewis opportunistically overtook Vettel around the outside entering the second chicane while Sebastian spun after clipping the kerb and nudging Hamilton’s car. Vettel has often
“DISCIPLINE IS VERY MUCH THE KEY.”
“IT’S NOT ALL WON ON THE FIRST CORNER OR EVEN THE SECOND CORNER”
appeared slightly clumsy in battle, much as his hero Michael Schumacher did, while Hamilton’s days of repeatedly driving into Felipe Massa are well behind him.
Vettel suffered several such incidents this year, such as with Max Verstappen at Suzuka and with Daniel Ricciardo in Austin. He missed out on a potential victory at Baku by snatching a brake, and collided clumsily with Valtteri Bottas in France. Ross Brawn went as far as to describe Vettel as “out of sorts” after his Austin collision with Ricciardo, although Vettel suggested the cause might be his car’s aerodynamic platform being disturbed by running alongside his rivals. Regardless, the tendency towards clumsiness has been evident for a while. Vettel is capable, but too often his judgement is fractionally imprecise, and at this level that costs him dearly.
Interestingly, Hamilton came off second best in a battle with Verstappen in the US GP, but Hamilton had way more to lose, and you could argue this was another example of his greatest talent in wheel-to-wheel battle: fine judgement.
“Discipline is very much the key,” says Hamilton of his general approach to races. “The experience of knowing when to push and how not to push; it is not all won on the first corner or even the second corner. There is always thinking of the longer game but also maximising in the short term.”
WITH 83 POLES LEWIS TOPS THE ALL-TIME LIST
“THERE IS ALWAYS THINKING OF THE LONGER GAME BUT ALSO MAXIMISING IN THE SHORT TERM”
4 MENTAL STRENGTH
It is often said that elite sport is won or lost as much within the recesses of an athlete’s own mind as it is on the field of battle. Nico Rosberg waged this war in a concerted effort (eventually successfully) to break Hamilton and make up for a deficit in pure driving ability. Vettel doesn’t lack in terms of mental strength, but he is an emotional creature – more Italian than German, according to Red Bull motorsport boss Helmut Marko – and those emotions have occasionally got the better of him.
Hamilton is no robot in the car either, but he appears to have learned a lesson from his chastening experience with Rosberg. There is a new steeliness to him now. He has completely subjugated Bottas, ensuring no threat re-emerges from within, and will often subtly twist the knife into Vettel outside the car – such as telling Sebastian he waited until the final run of Q3 in Australia to deliver a storming pole lap because he wanted to “wipe the smile off your face”.
Vettel’s complete loss of composure behind the Safety Car in Azerbaijan in 2017, for which he was penalised and hauled in front of an FIA disciplinary committee for deliberately driving into Hamilton, revealed a fragility Hamilton knows he can exploit. There is perhaps no better visual metaphor for Hamilton’s superiority than the video of him serenely scootering through the Monza pitlane, jinking around Vettel only at the last moment while his rival, looking flustered, almost leaps out of the way as Hamilton interrupts Vettel’s jog towards the Ferrari garage. The body language just screams ‘I’ve got you exactly where I want you’.
“I never, ever think, ‘I own you’,” counters Hamilton. “I don’t use that mentality. But look at [champion boxer Floyd] Mayweather: I don’t think I’ve ever seen him not look like he knows he’s going to win – even if the opponent is taller or whatever.”
He might not think it, but Hamilton certainly drove like he ‘owned’ Ferrari at Monza, and in fact Hamilton describes that race, where he came from behind to beat both Ferraris to victory – against the run of play and in front of their adoring tifosi – as “probably the biggest psychological blow” he struck in 2018. Hamilton may play it down, but he knows as well as anyone how quickly things can unravel if your opponent makes you lose your head…
“LOOK AT FLOYD MAYWEATHER: I DON’T THINK I’VE EVER SEEN HIM NOT LOOK LIKE HE KNOWS HE’S GOING TO WIN” LEWIS HAMILTON
“I NEVER, EVER THINK, ‘I OWN YOU’. I DON’T USE THAT MENTALITY”
“MY JOB IS TO TRY TO EXTRACT THE MOST FROM EVERY SINGLE PERSON HERE. HOW YOU NURTURE THAT AND BUILD UPON IT HAS BEEN KEY THIS YEAR. WE’VE REALLY LISTENED TO EACH OTHER AND REALLY EXECUTED” LEWIS HAMILTON
5 TEAM BUILDING
Michael Schumacher is considered the gold standard when it comes to a Formula 1 driver’s capacity for inspiring those around them to achieve new and ever greater heights. He was the fulcrum around which Jean Todt et al transformed Ferrari’s fortunes after a terrible run in the early 1990s.
The Scuderia have improved greatly in the four seasons since Vettel arrived, following a serious relapse in the first year of F1’s V6 hybrid engine formula, but the final piece of the puzzle continues to elude them. Team boss Maurizio Arrivabene says Ferrari have the means to win but are guilty of choking under the pressure. Vettel’s experience of winning championships has not inoculated Ferrari against the yips, and the recent signing of Charles Leclerc perhaps indicates that they might not be totally convinced Vettel is the man to ultimately lead them back to the top.
Hamilton, on the other hand, has galvanised Mercedes against the new external threat from Ferrari. Mercedes have placed their full faith in him, allowing him to attack the challenge of F1 in his own way, and they are reaping the rewards of that commitment. Vettel may be the driver most inspired by Schumacher’s methods, but increasingly it is Hamilton who appears to be Michael’s heir apparent.
“I have this large group of people to utilise; they are my tools, my soldiers,” Hamilton elaborates. “If I didn’t get those guys in the right positions, I wouldn’t be able to extract what I have in me. My job is to try to extract the most from every single person here. How you nurture that and build upon it has been key this year. We’ve really listened to each other and really executed.”
Consequently, Hamilton now stands apart on the current Formula 1 grid as its only five-time world champion and its undisputed king.