Its award season in the UK for sports folk; and just like for the Oscars, a number in their ranks now begin the rounds of PR and media events to advance their cause with the British voters for the honour of winning ‘The Sport’s Personality of the Year’. For those outside the UK, in actuality, personality is low in the voters’ criteria given that Andy Murray has won this title on a previous occasion.
Having wrapped up the season on track, Lewis Hamilton has returned to the country of his birth and has already given interviews on radio and television. However, Hamilton’s media glory parade following the season’s close has been some what hijacked by comments from Lewis’ team boss following the Abu Dhabi GP. Toto Wolff revealed that the relationship between Hamilton and Rosberg is the weakest link in the Mercedes AMG F1 team.
The Austrian went as far as to suggest that either Rosberg or Hamilton would have to go unless things improved. “We struggle sometimes in winning races on Sunday and having always one [driver] upset,” said Wolff. “And this spills over into the team. It is something that needs to stop. If we feel that it is not aligned with the general consensus, spirit and philosophy within the team, we might consider that when we take a decision, in terms of the driver line-up going forward.”
The British Formula One press believe Wolff’s comments though couched in the plural, are in fact solely directed at Hamilton. Kevin Eason for The Times writes, “Despite Hamilton’s pre-eminent position as the three-time world champion – winning the past two titles with Mercedes – he is not seen as a team player in a squad governed by the team ethic.
“His complaining over the past three races won by Rosberg is said to have grated on senior Mercedes executives and even irritated the engineers close to Hamilton”.
Similar tales were told of Lewis during the later days of his time at McLaren.
Eason went on to accuse Hamilton of being “a disruptive element”, as demonstrated in the 2015 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, “when he queried his team’s strategy and had to be instructed forcefully to carry out changes to his engine management system”. A number of other British newspapers pick up the same theme and The Telegraph report Wolff’s comments as ‘a rebuke to Hamilton’.
Surprisingly, Martin Brundle who is known to admire Hamilton much described his behaviour during 2016 as, “often churlish,” adding, “especially his petulant refusal to follow his engineer’s instructions”.
Much has been made this year of the Hamilton lifestyle change and the new friends he has embraced since splitting with his fiancé. Brundle believes this may prove to be Hamilton’s downfall: “The real Lewis Hamilton I’ve known for very many years is a thoughtful, entertaining and engaging person, and I don’t get the loner stance. I also think the kid from Stevenage is faster than the rapper from LA, and that a confident and diligent Rosberg can now beat mid-Atlantic man. He’s upped his game.”
Lewis looked to deflect the talk when he told BBC’s Radio 1, “You have seen [Rosberg] complains about a lot of things but you let it go over your head because that’s the way he is.” Hamilton also defended his ‘party’ lifestyle explaining, “To be honest, this is the first year that I’ve ever really done it. And you know what, I’d be partying, I’d turn up, and I’d win the race’. Living life is something Lewis feels is important too as he reveals, “I took the dangerous sport clause out of my contract and I try to do it with a nice balance,” he told BBC Radio. “I don’t want to go through my whole Formula 1 career only driving, but of course I don’t want to be sitting watching someone else drive my car. So I am very, very cautious when I do that, but I am crazy.”
On the matter of tension within the team, Lewis takes on Wolff – suggesting the team boss doesn’t understand the dynamic created by having to compete for two different titles. “It is kind of crazy and they shouldn’t really call us team mates as such. The problem is there are two championships, [while] in football there is one championship.
“For us [Mercedes] there is the constructors’ championship and that is what they hire us and pay us to do, but individually we want to win the championship. So it is difficult.
“But this side [of team mate tension] is always blown out of proportion. We have had 16 1-2s, so our relationship isn’t really causing any problems.
“It is not like he [Rosberg] has been distracted and not finished high up or vice versa, so I think ultimately it is easy for people to take things for granted. We have both done a great job”.
Despite claiming his third F1 drivers’ title, Lewis Hamilton will have a tough time winning this years ‘Sports Personality of the Year’ award, given the performances of other British sportsmen and women. These include the recent shocking result which saw Tyson Fury beat Vladimir Klitschko and Andy Murray is the bookies current favourite at 8/11 – after being credited with winning GB’s first Davies Cup final since 1936.
Hamilton is 5th favourite for SPOTY at 16/1 behind Murray, Jessica Ennis-Hill, Kevin Sinfield and Tyson Fury. However, the thought of Lewis merely sitting through the awards ceremony watching others receive their accolades is likely to unleash the might of the Hamfosi, as they marshal their voting troops. Then, anything is possible.
I was a Hamilton fan since his GP2 days. His driving style and overcoming the adversity of being a black man in a white man’s sport made me admire him. I am glad he has he got his 3rd World Championship.
However, I am now luke-warm to him. I think his life style is now at odds with his racing and he has lost the work ethic. I am also not happy at his ostentatious displays of his wealth – Look at me, Look who I’m with, Look at what I’ve got, Look where I am.
Yes, some other F1 drivers just drive and then disappear until the next race, which is not what Bernie wants, but the days when a James Hunt type character could party right up to the start of a race are long gone.
Hamilton needs to be told, either you are serious about F1, in which case you knuckle down and work, both with the team and your own fitness, or you leave and spend your money enjoying your life style and making music.
You can’t do both.
But surely you can, which he has shown. He’s partied but also worked hard and wrapped up the title with races to spare. It might not appeal to you how he lives his life, but thats the whole point – its HIS life, and as long as he is racking up the wins and the titles, who can really argue?
I goto work all day, and i take it seriously, but i get home and have fun, play games, go parties – it doesnt affect anything. We’re all human after all, and should be able to act like it.
The powers that be, have repeatedly made the point that these modern F1 are much too easy to drive – physically/mentally, which is why ‘they’ [the F1 intelligentsia] are trying to make the cars much more of a difficult driving experience for 2017. I accept your point re the ‘monastic’ style existence required by many modern athletes – which was less of the case in the James Hunt era of the 70’s – but this super dedication appears not to be so critical in F1 – particularly if you’re driving the car which is the class of the field.
They should spice up the entertainment by making the drivers speed drink on the grid, and do shots at the pitstops.
I guess Martin Brundle’s assessment of exactly how difficult it is to handle today’s F1 cars counts for nothing… oh well, just another myth created out of whole cloth that has taken on a life of its own.
Modern F1 cars are a challenge but in a different way to the past. It’s mostly to do with nursing the tyres (not a new thing really) and managing the performance of the PU’s to get the maximum amount of mileage out of them to avoid grid drops. As for Lewis ? The spotlight will be on him no matter what he gets up to on or off the track. He’s like marmite. Love him, tolerate him, loathe him.
And lets remember, Lewis isn’t the first and won’t be the last temperamental F1 driver with bags of talent to get stroppy when things don’t go his way. Alonso is the master of that one. If Nico has finally got the measure of Lewis, then we might be in for a fun season in 2016 after all. I expect the silly season on the drivers market will be quite amusing next year, as I’m guessing we’ll see rumours of “Lewis to Ferrari”. One team I can’t see him going back to is McLaren and not because the Honda PU is currently a pile of poop or Alonso, rather I don’t think Ron Dennis would put up with Lewis’s behaviour. Seems to be a big break down in the relationship between the two and not due to how Ron treats drivers usually i.e. cogs in the wheel that makes the McLaren F1 team win.
Though one question I have – If Mercedes don’t have reasonable grounds to fire Lewis, how much would they have to pay him to not race and sit out the reminder of his contract ?
All good points and I know where you’re coming from. But let me present you with another perspective (which I may or may not share).
When you (I don’t mean YOU, let’s say anyone else) go on holiday, or buy a new car, or just met a famous person, or some good friends, or get a promotion, don’t you put it up on Facebook? You do! But you don’t put up your everyday routine. That you take the bus, that you eat cereals, that you go to the gym, that you work really hard and get results at your job. You only put the highlights. Like a child, you go, Look…look…look, because you’re excited.
Now, personally, I don’t do that a lot. But because someone else does, because he likes Rap and not Heavy Metal like me, that he’s rich and shows it and I’m not, shouldn’t make me dislike him. I admire Hamilton for his driving skills, that he’s not a drunk, that he still does a lot of charity. And you know what. It’s not too bad that we get to see a little bit how an F1 driver lives.
Of course we relate better to those that think and act most like us. But let’s not try idolise these people. Just admire them for that action they offer every 2 weeks.
Thats an interesting POV.
So if I get it correctly, he’s able to win WDC’s, races, pole position trophies, fastest lap trophies etc whilst being boasting his ostentatious wealth and lacking dedication and commitment to his sport.
Hmm one can imagine what he’s capable of doing if he applied himself like his more subdued, dedicated and hardworking teammate.
How much more serious than 3WDC’s do you want?
Never mind, Lewis, you can always celebrate your achievements when you retire.
Meanwhile, in the real world….
8, but that might upset the Sch….. 😳😳…😂😂😂
“We have had 16 1-2s, so our relationship isn’t really causing any problems.” Party or not, you cant argue with the stats. #:) Dodo and Mercchumps have done what they needed to give Ros some extra confidence over the last few races…….in 2 races Ham has been denied the chance to change his tyre strategy when he wanted to…..this whole season was mostly garbage really. Only 2 cars competing for the title is sad!
“It is kind of crazy and they shouldn’t really call us team mates as such. The problem is there are two championships, [while] in football there is one championship.”
This difference of view between Hamilton and his paymasters is going to be key to Hamilton’s future. Either Mercedes have to change their equal driver + team uber alles standpoint or Hamilton is going to have to change his opinion on this and call himself a teammate who happens to strive for the same single prize as his teammate. Only the future knows who’s going to be right on this issue because the way it has been done up till now only makes the driver(s) happy (I’m not sure if Rosberg is happy with this relationship since I haven’t read the Rosberg side of the story on this specific subject in the context of Wolff’s comments)
Mercedes have always maintained, and their drivers have echoed this, that until the WCC is secure then the WDC and the race between team mates takes a back seat. That’s presumably why they only began entertaining the idea of split strategies after the WCC was wrapped up. Fundamentally Hamilton’s also done his part for the WCC title more than Nico too simply by virtue of him out-scoring him for the past two years. I doubt there’s much disagreement there with “his paymasters”.
In fairness, it’s not like Nico is leading the way in being team-spirited, it’s just that that never seems to get reported by TJ13 because it’s easier to write clickbait-y post titles based on skewed, taken-out-of-context quotes. When they can write a piece about Hamilton’s future at Mercedes and say that him saying he “hoped to be there” for many more years was a negative thing, it probably tells you everything you need to know on that front.
Ahhhhh, HAH! Hammy’s planning to replace Kimi at Fazoom in 2017!
“and overcoming the adversity of being a black man in a white man’s sport ”
Are you serious with this?, he faced zero adversity because of the colour of his skin, McLaren was holding his hand from very early, in fact he had it easy. Kudos to him for being talented anyway.
Guess you missed the racists chants he and his family suffered in Spain 2008. But yea, if you believe that the only blackman in a predominantly white sport, did and does not continue to face adversity, then I guess we’re living in different worlds.
“he had it easy”….Really? Ok
What happened in Barcelona was not racism (in my opinion), only a bunch of Alonso´s brainless fanboys.
Really? So I take it when they do the same to black footballers in the Spanish league it’s not racism? So would it have only been that had they not been Alonso ‘fanboys’?
GTFOH with that bull!
Woah!! It is only my opinion, I dont really like football, so I dont know what they say or do. I am only saying that in THAT SPECIFIC EVENT was not racism only fanaticism about Alonso, they want to said something offensive about Lewis because he was doing a very good season and charged with his skin color (as I was saying they are brainless). If Alonso teammate had been white they would have been offensive about his sexual tendencies or something like that (brainless indeed), you only have to read some spanish F1 forum to realize that when they can not say something good about Alonso they abuse the other F1 drivers.
So after 3 WDC’s, 43 race wins, 49 pole positions and 87 podium finishes, people are still questioning his ‘lifestyle choices’… Hmmm maybe it’s time we starting asking those who are asking the questions some questions of our own.
Well said. If he wasnt winning you could almost question it, but hes only human.
Im sure the people that say this, go home after work and do nothing but think of work, read up on ways to be better at work, and literally do nothing but work…..oh wait!
To be fair his statistics weren’t exactly half as impressive pre Mercedes were they. The only reason he possesses those high numbers now is due to the highly successful 2 seasons just gone in those Merc cars, where the car has broken more records under the sun.
It is also coincidentally these 2 years (well more this year) that he has started to publicise himself more and more outside of the workplace. The car has flattered those statistics somewhat and when he joined Merc in 2013, people were wondering if he would ever be in a position to win another WDC and add to his fairly modest win and pole counts back then.
His lifestyle choices are now directly affecting his driving somewhat according to some, AFTER he has achieved what he has in these past 2 seasons with Merc. You can’t exactly say that has achieved ALL those statistics you mention above whilst pursuing a lifestyle that he has been participating in towards the end of this season.
Can you point to where these lifestyle choices are affecting his driving?
And sure I can, because he achieved them.
So you think Rosberg claiming 6 consecutive pole positions in a row, winning 3 races on the bounce and retiring from the lead in 1 other doesn’t show that Ham has dropped the ball a bit and let his lifestyle post WDC win affect him? I mean come on, I know you are a hardcore Ham fan, but what else would have led to this huge downfall??
Yes he achieved them, BEFORE he started his more extravagant lifestyle, so in relation to your point, it is completely irrelevant.
Guess you missed his comments relating the shift in balance of the car post Singapore.
And before you say it’s excuses, he says he know what it is and it’s something he will get on top of in testing. And it’s clear that it’s a problem, hence Mercedes stating they’re going to investigate.
No I read them perfectly fine. Tyre pressure adjustments post Monza and slight tweaks to the suspension on the car to accommodate that.
Hasn’t Hamilton traditionally been known to easily adapt to a changing car? I mean that is what he was praised for when teamed with JB back in his Macca days?
These changes have been so minor I am simply not buying it. Rosberg has raised his game slightly and to me Hamilton has dropped the ball. Now in the past 3 races he has now been faced with the situation Nico has dealt with all season. Don’t get pole on Saturday and there is no chance to win the race on a Sunday due to the lead driver always being on optimum strategy.
Now he has realised how difficult it is to overcome a loss on a Saturday, he has become frustrated.
“Hasn’t Hamilton traditionally been known to easily adapt to a changing car? ”
Yes, and the same goes for Alonso. But this is when both Hamilton (or Alonso) and his team-mate have a difficult car. Not when the car is difficult for Hamilton and perfectly suits his team-mate.
“Can you point to where these lifestyle choices are affecting his driving?”
Driving into three parked cars on the streets of Monaco in the early morning hours last month.
Actually rather than think people don’t read or are unable to comprehend you comment haw about face the fact that you are conflating issues here to render a false outcome concerning LH’s career.
Did you stop to think that he was 2nd in the WDC and won the following season on a team that did not win the WCC?… that after he won a dozen races on a team that never, in his time with it, sniffed a WCC?
So, now with a dominant car wins consecutive WDCs…. hmmm, isn’t all of his career the measure of a great driver? Win without and win much, much more with???
McLaren78 – You could say that, or you could reverse it and say that the car earlier on in the season favoured Hamilton much more with the lower tyre pressures and that is why Nico was struggling with setup. I remember everyone saying that Nico is unable to adapt, cannot extract the maximum out of the merc and simply is no match for Hamilton.. not the fact that the car might not have suited him as much as Lewis during the first half of the season. Now the tables have turned with recent results and many are claiming that it is car balance that is the cause and not that Nico is simply out driving him… Bit contradictory isn’t it?
Dwill – Come on, was the Ferrari really a better car than the McLaren in 08? McLaren were clearly faster the previous year in 07, and either Lewis or Fernando should have won the title that year. The only reason McLaren didn’t win the WCC in 2008 was because they had Heikki Kovalainen as Lewis’s team-mate, who was clearly not as fast as either Massa, Kimi or Lewis at the time. Of course a stronger team pairing is going to help their team win the WCC ahead of 1 strong driver and an average team-mate.. especially when Heikki finished down in 7th that year in a car that was easily faster than the Renault and the BMW Sauber that season.
I think you also forget that in 2010 and 2012, McLaren had probably the fastest package in both seasons (not most reliable) and that Lewis in 2010 had a greater shot at the title than Vettel (he even was ahead of him in the standings after Korea), who hadn’t even led the championship all season until after Abu Dhabi.
Seeing as they only finished 54 points behind RB in 2010, you can hardly say they were never within a sniff of a WCC.
Lewis has repeatedly said, his current issues with the car has nothing to do with the tire pressures.
It seems the problem manifest itself more during qualifying, because his race pace still remains better than ROS.
2010 McLaren didn’t have the best car on the grid. I’ll give you 2012, but did he fail to mount a serious challenge because of his lack of preparation and dedication or was due to the constant operational fcuk ups by McLaren and the extremely poor reliability?
The facts are, James P, that McLaren did not win the WCC in 2008. You can opine all you want but the end result – the point differential – is clear and is left for all of us to view.
It depends how you want to judge I guess. Compared to the majority of us he is incredible successful. Compared to his potential? I think he could do better.
I feel that he has won relatively easily these last two seasons because he’s not had serious competition. He can live life as he likes and still do well enough to beat the one car which is a serious challenge.
Hopefully he is just managing things – performing well enough to stay on top and making more time to enjoy his life. Once the rest catch up he will need to rebalance – you can’t live the party lifestyle and perform to your very best.
It is the same in sport as in life. Some people dedicate themselves to being the absolute best at what they do at the expense of other past-times. Others perform as well as they need to and are happy at that. Others still think they are doing their best but if they bothered to apply themselves would do a whole lot better. I fall in to that latter camp!
Not sure what article you read but the points of interest in the article above are not ‘lifestyle choices’ made by Lewis Hamilton.
You and other commentators decision to focus on this tabloid worthy point almost feels like an agenda.
The thing you should care about is Lewis is again, irking management of the team he is in. He has no competition on track yet the guy just can’t help himself and is digging himself a hole. Mercedes is responsible for the past 2 yrs but if you here Lewis tell it he’s solely responsible for the cars speed.
Ron has made some interesting points on Lewis and maybe why he’s not emotionally developed.
What team with the dedication, focus, engineering and software talent like Mercedes has wants to deal with a headache like Lewis? You don’t think max or riccardo could rack up the numbers that Lewis did in the past two seasons? Of course they could and they’re much more mature and interesting to listen to.
He has no respect – he should take a lesson from vettel and bow and be humble to his machine.
😏😏😏
but hey, at least we’re not talking about Illien working for renault, not red bull, and that red bull arent developing their own PU next season.
hamilton is very fast and a very good driver, we all know that. what riles a lot of people is the continuous in your face classless ostentation that he flaunts. that is his prerogative but to a lot of people it is anathema and so long as he presents this public persona then he must also wear any approbrium that is directed his way. it what is known as ’cause and effect’
Lifestyle choices? Well an F1 driver has to be a pretty fit athlete. Hamilton has chosen to live his life in the public eye, fair enough, but is he still committed to the work ethic needed to be the best athlete in F1?
In all the years Schumacher competed he kept his fitness at the highest level. Does jetting around the world, attending parties here, there and everywhere fit in with a healthy lifestyle? Surely the jet lag at least is going to make some difference.
I suppose the point I am making is that Hamilton is a superb driver and racer. He has to be to have won all he has, but how much better would he be if he concentrated a bit more on F1 and less on chillin’ with his posse? I think he has taken his eye off the ball since winning his 3rd world championship, understandably. But he needs to recognize that in himself instead of blaming all and sundry because Rosberg has beaten him.
Let’s not forget that Schumi effectively transformed the fitness aspect to Formula 1. He was considered the first driver to take a scientific approach to being as fit as physically possible, and it forced all current drivers at the time to dramatically raise their game away from the car. This contributed I believe to the ease he used to be able to process information on the fly whilst driving the car.
No Schumacher wasn’t the first – Ayrton Senna was the first to take the approach to fitness you describe.
Cut the guy some slack, he’s won 2 WDC’s on the bounce, this year only needing around 80% of the season to do it.
Now if he fluffs it up next year over silly mistakes and poor judgment in his driving, then by all means open up with both barrels on the man. BUT, until that moment, give credit where credit is due.
Although if I were him, I wouldn’t be telling the world’s media (which is monitored by the team) that on the Saturday night after qualifying he sits writing and recording music untill 1 or 2am. That is the only thing I can pull him on, not because it’s affecting his performance, but because its not what you would really choose to tell your boss.
Besides, by the time Mercedes have had enough of him, Honda will have sorted thier PU and Ron will be gone from the helm of McLaren, so in my dreams, Lewis can get his 5th WDC with the team he started with and come full circle.
Why not with Vettel at Ferrari Clear View? Now that would be a pairing
Because very likely Vettel has a clause in his contract to never get Hamilton in and Ferrari would never pair two roosters under one roof. Only way Hamilton will go to Ferrari is if Vettel doesn’t deliver a title and leaves.
Personally, I’m with CV, get Lewis back to Macca!
When are all the drivers contracts up for renewal? Maybe Hamilton will be at McLaren or Ferrari in 2017
Ferrari don’t like 2 roosters in the hen house at the same time and can you really see the red team putting up with his petulism and ‘blaming’ the team or car when things go pear shaped.
yea we go again every one think they have the right to scold and chide Lewis,those are the same criticism he got when he wasn’t winning ,now he wining every thing the same criticism .we know what this is all bout…its funny how these people never complain about how little Button has achieved in the last 5yrs,he is sushhhhhhh a gentle man.
Now there’s interesting.
They don’t call the off season, the silly season for nothing. Take a few quotes, mix in some innuendo, add a dash of personal bias and post it on the Internet to slag off someone more successful than anyone who posts here will ever be, and viola!
A personal hate piece couched as an editorial with thinly viewed racist undertones. Disgusting.
Hamilton’s problem isn’t his driving skills, work ethic, or lifestyle. The problem is that he is a sore loser when Nico beats him fair and square. I don’t care who you are, a**holes don’t last in any company. Just ask Alonso!
There’s a subtle battle for hearts n’ minds being played out between Toto and Lewis. It seems that Lewis doesn’t quite comprehend the depth of this intrigue… and to that end, he’s losing.
Moreover, the rights to direct Mercedes’ narrative that’s used to describe their collective success to this point, and future priorities, is tennis-like in the back-and-forth at play.
I’ve no dog in this fight, but if I were a Lewis Hamilton fan, I’d be concerned.
Of course, this is just an opinion – a series of observations filtered through my own framework. Take them with a grain of salt… what do I know? What does anyone know? Fuck all.
Do even the ones at Mercedes that know, truly know? I doubt it.
Here’s a thought for you. Is it just Toto? Might he be under pressure from someone to make F1 look more like a competition and less like a Mercedes benefit?
After all, the more Mercedes win by a comfortable margin the harder it will be to resist an overt means of pulling them back.
The person who gave Lewis the 3 year contract for a humongous quantity of Euros might be under pressure though I’d be surprised if Mercedes would consider buying him out. However, there are hot new talents who might do the same job for less but who knows if they would be better team players. However teams have dropped WDC winners – Hill at Williams for example. An interesting question to ponder over the mince pies at christmas would be “if Lewis were suddenly on the market would he get a drive and with whom?”
Hi Stephen,
Yes I’ve considered that previously, and have considered it again as a result of your prompt.
Everything after your second sentence may well be Toto’s motivation / Toto under pressure. However per your question, no, I don’t think it’s just Toto. Lewis is responding to Toto’s narrative in contra ways over recent weeks/months. I don’t see that as coincidence and thus this being just Toto.
Now, before my comment is misread by the hypersensitive, I’m not apportioning blame, but simply noting that Lewis IS consciously in the game – and probably playing into Toto’s hands.
Again, grain of salt…
Cheers,
WTF_F1
Usually results are what keeps a driver at a team. Senna, Piquet, Mansell, Alonso, Hamilton, Schumacher and I’m sure others were grade A assholes to their competitive team mates. In most cases it’s usually the other team mate that leaves.
As for sore losers. Again, extremely common in F1. Rosberg is one the biggest sore losers on the grid. It’s unfortunate the relationship is toxic between he and Lewis. To avoid or reduce this, Mercedes needs a clear number 2 that can’t challenge either Rosberg or Hamilton consistently. Much will depend on next season’s car and how each driver handles it. Would love to see Ricciardo in a Mercedes, though I doubt he’d be a number 2 grade driver. Rosberg or Hamilton paired with Verstappen at Red Bull would be very interesting.
Surprisingly, Martin Brundle who is known to admire Hamilton much described his behaviour during 2016 as, “often churlish,” adding, “especially his petulant refusal to follow his engineer’s instructions”.
Well, that’s astonishing. Brundle should start backing racehorses. Or maybe he’s got a rilly, rilly, good astrologer.
Watch and listen the words in the song. Kneel minions you are all witnessing a legend in his craft. Now let the man be…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=USPumoHNrbU
I watched the video, which nauseated me slightly, but failed to see the “legend in his craft”. Where was he/she/it?
😉
there is no way clear that i can see where mercedes/wolffie would drop hamilton. he is their focus and he will get away with his constant whining. mercedes have too much invested in him to drop him. if push came to shove it would be rosberg who’s shown the door, with a very fat cheque in his hand. i also see this as a ‘straw’ issue to take the attention away from their total domination. mercedes do not want to see another engine introduced as an ‘equivalency’ unit would put them under pressure to either reduce prices or face a real challenge. ferrari and honda may close the variance somewhat but i very much doubt that they can make up the total discrepancy and then add more performance on top!
Lewis Hamilton wrapping up the wdc 3 races before the end, and becoming the first British racing driver to successfully defend his title was reason for many and himself to celebrate. But the venom toward’s F1’s most hated star also reflects the uneasy ties between white fans and black athletes in football, tennis, basketball. The more you journalist and media try to make Lewis a villain, the more he’s going to hit back and prove you all wrong. There is a deep-rooted belief black sports personalities aren’t entitled to lavish riches, is this a reason for the hate on Lewis? We say sports is a bridge that binds us together. But like religion and politics, we’re still clearly divided. At the end of the day, you journals and media, have made Lewis to a legend.
I see Lewis Hamilton has picked up both the British Competition and International Racing Driver awards from AutoSport.
He said “As it’s the public and not a panel of voting, that means there are a lot of readers of Autosport – including myself – voting. It’s a great feeling.
Just goes to prove that acres of nasty comments made about him on various forums are not believed in the real world by the people who matter. Not that it will stop idiots from making up more lies about him.
Some of the criticism Hamilton gets is really irksome.
He has just won his 3rd WDC and successfully defended his title as Champion. And he won the season in fairly dominant style against Rosberg and Vettel. He was focused until he won, now he is taking his foot off the gas and everybody starts shooting arrows at him. If that was playboy Jenson Button everybody would be waxing lyrical about how under-rated he is and how amazing he is, blah blah blah.
For sure, Hamilton could cut down on the social media lifestyle and things like that but ultimately that’s not for people to judge. Perhaps he didn’t get to enjoy his childhood like all children do at his age because he was focused on maximizing his chances of making it to F1. And when he did he started maximizing his chances to win his first title. Only Hamilton knows what he had to go through. If he needs to blow off some steam by hanging out with rappers, that’s his choice. He’s not wrong for doing it, although I would agree to some degree that advertising it on social media may not be everybody’s cup of tea. There’s an easy solution to that, blank it out.
It’s churlish to question someone’s commitment when they have been doing exactly what they set out to do (in Lewis’ case, winning the WDC). Nobody questions Vettel’s commitment, and rightly so because even if the Red Bull blew away the whole paddock for 4 years, it took an immense amount of work and commitment from Vettel to fulfill his ambition. Schumacher was the same, extremely committed to winning. Hamilton ought to be viewed in a similar light.