Hamilton claims pole to set up push for title
Briton is on the brink of matching great Argentine’s five titles, writes Oliver Brown in Austin, Texas
Lewis Hamilton last night laid the best possible platform for his fifth Formula One world title, underlining his supremacy here at the Circuit of the Americas with a record-extending 81st pole position.
With a brilliant late surge to squeeze out his arch-rival Sebastian Vettel, he set a dazzling track record in overcast, blustery conditions, giving him a priceless advantage in today’s United States Grand Prix as he seeks to equal Juan Manuel Fangio with title No 5.
The portents could hardly be more auspicious: Hamilton has won at this Texan track, a favourite of his, each of the last four years, while Vettel has been relegated to fifth with a three-place grid penalty, imposed after he had failed to slow down for a red flag in practice. With Britain’s most decorated driver already holding a 67-point lead in the standings, Vettel must target no worse than second if he is to have any hope of extending the duel as far as next weekend’s race in Mexico City.
“That was very important,” said Hamilton, his relief palpable after a tense qualifying tussle between Mercedes and Ferrari. “It was close. I knew it was quite edgy between us, that it was going to require a solid lap. I was adamant I was going to pull it off.”
For Vettel, the damage could already be irreparable after his Friday penalty. It was the latest in a catalogue of Ferrari errors, which included Vettel spinning out of the lead at his home race in Germany. Such haplessness has been the difference this season.
“It was a shame to miss out by so little time,” Vettel said. “The wind was quite tricky at times. I’m pretty happy that we’re back in range, given the past few weeks we have had.”
Hamilton, so relaxed during qualifying that he found time to chat to Hollywood actor Matthew McConaughey, a guest in the Mercedes garage, has had the beating of Vettel ever since the summer break. While Vettel ratcheted up the pressure with an impressive final lap, Hamilton still surpassed him by six hundredths of a second. are playing, officiating or working in any capacity.”
When the prospect of emulating Juan Manuel Fangio was first put to Lewis Hamilton, at a gala dinner in Paris last year, he responded blankly, saying only that it would be “quite cool”. Now that it is virtually a racing certainty that he will match the Argentine’s five Formula One titles, his attitude has shifted, his appreciation warm for a man whose 1950s feats have lost none of their mystique.
“He’s the godfather for us,” Hamilton said here in Austin. “It’s crazy to think that I’m embarking on a similar number of championships.”
Their eras are almost impossible to compare. Fangio drove in an age of acute peril, a neck injury sustained at Monza in 1952 showing him how “it was very easy to go from life to death without even knowing it”, while Hamilton benefits from advanced safety measures ensuring that the risk of mortal danger has, mercifully, never been lower. And while Fangio’s 24 grand prix wins have been dwarfed by Hamilton’s 71, he competed in a period when seasons were curtailed to seven or eight races, as opposed to today’s 21.
Such is the gulf that even Hamilton, whose closest acquaintance with 1950s motorsport was to drive Stirling Moss’s Mille Miglia-winning Mercedes around Monza, admits he struggles to see how he would have fitted into Fangio’s time. “Certainly it wasn’t a good time for black people,” he said. “We probably wouldn’t have been racing. I am grateful to be in this era, with the technology we have now. It is always strange to hear the drivers’ 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.”
For all that Fangio’s exploits have become steeped in sepia, the shadow that he casts is long. According to research at the University of Sheffield, he remains F1’s greatest ever driver, having won titles with four different teams – a record unmatched by any successor – and earned distinction as the oldest champion of all, aged 46 years and 41 days when he captured his fifth crown in 1957. Sir Jackie Stewart, no less, has endorsed that verdict, identifying Fangio as his hero, not just for courage behind the wheel but for the style and dignity with which he carried himself.
It was fitting that Fangio accomplished title No 5 with perhaps his defining display. At the fearsome Nurburgring, he took the gamble of starting with a light fuel load, building a comfortable lead over the works Ferraris of Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins, until a chaotic pit-stop erased his advantage at a stroke. Through it all, he stayed the calmest person on the track, redoubling his efforts to break the lap record for the 14.1-mile circuit nine times – no mean feat, given the fact that his seat had broken mid-race. In the jubilant aftermath, he conceded that the ordeal had near ruined him. Explaining that he had never driven so hard, he added: “And I do not wish to again.”
Born in 1911 in the potato-growing community of Balcarce, 180 miles south of Buenos Aires, Fangio by no means regarded a route into motor racing as a path preordained. For a while, it looked more likely that he would become a footballer, earning the nickname El Chueco (the Bandy One) in honour of his exquisite technique with left-footed shots. Only after national service did he discover his niche in South American longdistance races, where he learned the stamina that would later be his trademark. Even though Fangio’s name is today a synonym for speed, he was not always the fastest, instead eclipsing the opposition by virtue of his cunning and capacity for drawing every last drop of performance from ailing cars.
Even after Michael Schumacher had surged clear in the record books with a sixth title, and then a seventh, he always sought to downplay parallels with Fangio.
In 2003, the German said, shortly after sealing immortality at Suzuka as a six-time champion: “You cannot compare to someone like Fangio in the current times. He’s on a higher level than I see myself. There’s no possible comparison.” As Tony Brooks, who raced against Fangio at Ferrari, once put it, the reaction that the great man most often inspired was “awe”.
While Fangio was not a natural daredevil, his pre-eminence in a chapter of F1 where every corner could be one’s last afforded him exalted status in the eyes of all who followed in his wake.
Where Hamilton has acquired greater poise and maturity with each season that has passed, it was Fangio who set the template for the gentleman racer. There were suggestions that he had allowed his team-mate Moss to win the British Grand Prix at Aintree in 1955, but he would never acknowledge as much, for fear of causing his rival embarrassment.
It is difficult to tell quite what Fangio would have made of an heir such as Hamilton. They were forged in different worlds: where Hamilton has used an estimated £130million fortune to fund the most lavish lifestyle, Fangio was never bothered by the accoutrements of fame. In his dotage, he reflected: “If I were really rich, I would ask myself, ‘What for?’ I enjoy myself more than others who have made materialism their maxim.” Polar opposites as personalities though they might be, they are soon to be companions in F1’s pantheon.