Braking late is the key for karting kid Lewis
LEWIS HAMILTON’S father anthony is rarely seen at his son’s side these days. It is more likely to be Justin Bieber and neymar.
But it will be the lessons his dad taught him long ago that could help the world champion win tomorrow’s Canadian Grand Prix.
Here next to the rowing lake built for the olympic Games that left montreal skint, Hamilton’s training at such homespun karting tracks as Buckmore Park, Rye House and Fulbeck will be to the fore.
approximately 19 per cent of the 2.7-mile track is spent on the brakes. If you can occupy a fraction longer on the gas and a smidgeon less on the left pedal, your chances of victory are increased.
to this end, anthony Hamilton would stand at the side of the track telling his son where the other karters were braking. He would instruct lewis to leave it later than the rest.
natural aptitude and rigorous teaching means the 31-year-old lewis arrives at the eve of the seventh round of the championship as favourite. Sir Stirling moss speaks approvingly of lewis’s late braking. It is perhaps the distinctive characteristic of his driving technique, and may explain why Hamilton has won four times in his career on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, where big stops are the order of the day.
only michael Schumacher, with seven victories, has a more impressive montreal record.
Hamilton has cut a relaxed figure in the paddock, having paid a visit to the basketball at Cleveland en route. He admitted he had partied enthusiastically after winning in monaco a fortnight ago — a victory after eight fruitless attempts that put him within 24 points of his mercedes team-mate and previously runaway championship leader, nico Rosberg.
‘my head was banging a little but it was a good feeling,’ he said of his other career as a carouser.
‘Since then I have generally had a good feeling but it resets again here this weekend. I feel positive but I am conscious of how the season has gone so far. We have had just one win and there are potholes that we could easily manoeuvre past or easily fall into. But if we have a smooth weekend it will be a happy weekend.’
the season is so long — 21 races — that it is easier to predict with certainty what Brexit means for the economy than what a victory or two spells in the title race. nevertheless, one still wonders if Rosberg is quite so assured after his poor performance in monaco in the wet, where he was light years slower than Hamilton.
Rosberg went into a long explanation in the paddock about the disparity between the mercedes. He struggled, he said, with brake temperatures. that caused him to lose confidence in the car, which in turn meant he did not drive fast enough to get temperature into his tyres. Ergo, he was conspicuously slow.
Hamilton was not convinced by that. asked about Rosberg’s problem, he said: ‘Same car and all that — I did my job. the conditions were tricky but normally I don’t pull two seconds a lap in those conditions.’ Was the champ perhaps indicating that the difference really lay between their respective ears?
the consensus among the cognoscenti — reinforced by early practice times — is that mercedes will be dominant around montreal, having been second best to Red Bull in monaco, where Daniel Ricciardo would have won but for a blunder by his usually more reliable team. He sat in the pit box while they fished out the right tyres from the back of the garage.
Ricciardo was understandably very unimpressed at the time. ‘I gave it a few days to cool off,’ said the typically wide-grinning australian. ‘I then spoke to various people in the team and they explained what happened.
‘that was good to hear, but it is more important to know that it will not happen again. they have set up some new procedures. I needed to discuss it and I can now move on.’
as for Hamilton, he was asked why he was so successful here, and mused: ‘Why am I good anywhere?’
It was, as we were saying, because of his late braking.