Lewis Hamilton is now a Ferrari driver following twelve seasons competing with the Mercedes AMG Formula One team. Known as somewhat of a marmite character within the sport, Hamilton’s departure from Brackley will undoubtable see a flurry of tales emerging over his time with the silver arrows.

The British driver began his F1 career with McLaren who had just recruited the reigning double world champion in Fernando Alonso. Their year together was best described as fractious, with Alonso leaving at the end of the season believing team boss Ron Dennis had favoured his young protege.

Such was the duel between the McLaren drivers, taking points from each other throughout the year, that they allowed Kimi Raikkonen to steal the drivers’ championship by a single point from the McLaren pair who finished the year tied.

 

 

 

Hamilton team mate battles fierce

Hamilton then had a couple of less challenging seasons from his new team mate Heikki Kovalainen before McLaren recruited the current world champion in Jenson Button to race alongside Lewis in 2010. Across their three seasons together, Button outscored his junior team mate, the only team mate ever to do so in Hamilton’s F1 career.

Yet as with Alonso, Hamilton’s time alongside Button was far from sweetness and light. In their final year together before Hamilton’s move to Mercedes in 2013, Lewis developed a narrative that the team was favouring Jenson.

As contract negotiations were dragging on between Hamilton and Ron Dennis, the teams arrived in Spa for the 2012 Belgian Grand Prix. Button claimed pole in qualifying smashing Hamilton’s efforts by over nine tenths of a second.

A furious Lewis decided to reveal what he believed were the reasons he’d been trounced by his team mate, posting detailed telemetry information on social media. This not only displayed the driver traces but crucial information on the set up of both cars, as Hamilton attempted to persuade those listening that the team had led him astray on car setup.

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Engineers “astonished” at Lewis’ behaviour

Engineers from rival teams were astonished at Hamilton’s action with one commentating in the paddock, “this is effectively a war,” while another describe Lewis behaviour as “most strange.”

Having left McLaren for Mercedes, Lewis was to come up against a childhood rival in Nico Rosberg, who had crushed Michael Schumacher across three seasons racing together following the seven times world champions decision to return from retirement. 

Rosberg proved to be Hamilton’s toughest competition yet, losing out in a season finale decider to lewis in Abu Dhabi, before finally defeating Hamilton to the title in a bitter rivalry throughout the season of 2016.

Christian Horner described Lewis as follows following his 2017 title victory: “He’s a Marmite character; some people love him, some people hate him. But he’s his own personality, he’s got his own way about him, and he’s absolutely entitled to do that.” And for this reason there will be plenty of folk who have crossed Hamilton and now have a tale to tell now he’s left Mercedes.

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Lewis “too pushy”

Ron Meadows the team’s sporting director, gave the New York Times this week an insight into the Hamilton/Rosberg rivalry years.“He’s definitely a unique character, he’s someone who can sort of departmentalise his life,” said Meadows.

“I think [in] 12 years we never had a cross word. We’ve been to the stewards quite a lot, especially in the Nico [Rosberg] vs Lewis days, and it doesn’t matter who was to blame, he always he could see that I had to be impartial.”

Meadows goes on to reveal he and Lewis never fell out which is remarkable considering the pair attended 246 F1 race weekends together across the years. Yet Lewis handling of the engineers at times left something to be desired at times although Meadows reveals “when sometimes he’s been a bit too pushy, he’ll reflect and come back, and say: ‘yeah, maybe I just need to back off there’.”

Lewis Hamilton’s globe trotting became an issue for a while as he befriended a number of A-list celebrities mostly from the USA. He memorably after the 2018 Singapore Grand Prix made social appearances in the UK, the USA and China before arriving in Sochi ten days later for the Russian Grand Prix.

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Globe trotting an issue

Hamilton’s long term relationship with pussy cat doll, Nicole Sherzinger was troubled, such that during testing in Jerez his team mates motorhome driver spilled the beans over the many rows the pair had to a representative of TJ13.

Yet Meadows insists Hamilton’s private life and at times his difficulties with relationships, as was the case with his father, wild not affect his focus when at the factory or the racing circuit.

“I find him very easy to work with, I’m not sure everyone would say that, but certainly from my side, I’ve always found it very easy,” he says. 

“I think that was what makes him special, so that he when he’s here, he’s all over it, and when he comes to the factory, is all over it, but he knows when he can relax, and some drivers can’t do that, so that’s probably the most unique part about him. 

“When he comes racing, he’s fully focused on his racing, and then you’ll see a social media post that he’s 12 hours away on a plane somewhere doing something completely different, which is makes him unique to all the other drivers, because he’s got so much going on in his life.”

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Hamilton not always a PR dream

Meadows does reveal that the teams PR manager may see things differently, “but for me, he’s always very obliging when I ask him to do things which are not session related, he’s always great.” 

The love him/hate him nature of Hamilton has been forged over many years and for sure will see a range of tales emerging over Lewis behaviour during his time with Mercedes. Yet the challenge for Hamilton is now in Italy, as he begins his Ferrari career and what is certain to be a titanic battle with his seventh career F1 team mate in Charles Leclerc.

The Italians will not take kindly to Lewis criticising their national obsession in Ferrari as he has done so at Mercedes for the past three seasons. And with the team close to winning the constructors’ title in 2024, Lewis will need to be competitive when compared to Leclerc if he’s not to be criticised in the Italian media.

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FIA called out on “bias” over license criteria

Fans and Formula One pundits alike were almost universal in their support for the expansion of the number of teams competing in the sport. The Andretti proposal to become the eleventh team on the grid was given the green light by the FIA almost eighteen months ago, but found its route to competition blocked by the Liberty Media owned Formula One Management (FOM) group.

The exclusion came to the attention of the US Justice department which coincidentally had recently fined the NFL almost $5 billion for anti-competitive practices. A shuffle of personnel at the top of Liberty Media and Andretti Racing saw a fast track agreement reached before the Las Vegas Grand Prix, for the Andretti application to morph into one in the name of Cadillac, who claim they will build their own F1 power unit by the end of the decade.

More teams on the F1 grid means more opportunity for young drivers, who in recent years have found it tough to make it into the pinnacle of motorsport. The FIA has its own series of feeder racing programmes designed as a pathway to ultimately reach Formula One but unlike at the inception of the GP2 and GP3 series back in 2005, less and less champions are making it all the way to a full tie F1 drive…. READ MORE