He jetted to Ibiza next for talks with Mercedes team director Niki Lauda on
board Gerhard Berger’s yacht, prompting paddock speculation as to what was
so important that it could not have been said on the phone or even in
Hungary this weekend.
Back in the UK, Britain’s much-loved commentator, Murray Walker, gave an
interview in which he questioned the wisdom of Hamilton’s
advisers, saying that whoever told him it was OK to take his pet bulldog
Roscoe to races should be “drummed out of the Brownies”, opining that it was
“utter madness”.
All pretty standard stuff, really, where Hamilton is concerned: stunning
drives, mood swings, paddock gossip.
The 2008 world champion is, or was, an ordinary kid from Stevenage with an
extraordinary ability to drive racing cars. But perhaps an even greater one
for generating news stories.
Since he first exploded on to the scene with McLaren
in 2007, claiming nine podium finishes in his first nine races and missing
the title by a point, he has been pure box office.
The highs, the lows, the tantrums, the tweets; every detail has been recorded
and disseminated across the blogosphere, building the hype, adding to the
mystique.
Somewhere, in among the diamond earrings, the private jet and the popstar
girlfriend, his on-track performance has been conflated with his off-track
lifestyle.
His lack of silverware since those early days has been attributed by some to
competing influences in his life; his decision to dispense with his father,
Anthony, as his manager and instead sign for Simon Fuller’s XIX agency cited
by his detractors as proof that he values his brand more than his chances of
winning further championship titles.
Is this criticism fair? Hamilton does not think so. In 2011, when he was in to
see the stewards every other week, he openly admitted he had too many
outside distractions.
This week, he bristled at suggestions that his performances have been in any
way compromised.
“Everyone was talking me down at the beginning of the year,” he said.
“So many things were said about whether it was the right or wrong decision [to
move to Mercedes], whether it was a silly mistake. But the team and I have
constantly proved everyone wrong, race by race.
“People have said that distractions have got in the way, but I feel that I
have performed in the car. The only time I can say that I lost it was in
Monaco, where I lost a bit of time with the safety car.”
It is certainly true that despite the perception, much of which he helps to
sustain, that he is depressed and/or going off the rails, Hamilton’s track
performances this season have been pretty solid; certainly far more
encouraging than many, including the driver himself, predicted over the
winter when he made the switch from McLaren.
The Brackley team are second in the constructors’ championship and Hamilton is
still competing, just, for the drivers’ crown. They may not be after Sunday
– Hamilton said on Friday that Mercedes were way off Red Bull’s long run
pace – but the team’s tyre issues are hardly his fault.
And yet. If Hamilton is performing as he says he is, and still struggling to
beat his team-mate Nico Rosberg, then perhaps we need revise our
expectations of him. That is his Catch-22.
Hamilton is held to higher standards than other drivers. The driver of 2007,
who beat his double world champion team-mate Fernando Alonso in his rookie
season, was destined to blow away everyone else in his inexorable march
towards greatness.
It has not quite turned out like that. Hamilton’s raw speed is still arguably
unsurpassed, and there have been drives which have stood comparison with any
in the history of the sport – his wet-weather wins at Silverstone in 2008,
or Spa in 2010, for example. But he is still not the complete driver.
There are still areas in which the likes of Fernando Alonso or Sebastian
Vettel are deemed stronger; engineering feedback, decision-making on
and off-track, the ability to create a winning team around them.
The great drivers find a way to win. They engineer moves to the right teams,
create a winning environment, dominate their team-mates.
To be remembered as a great, to fulfil the potential he was deemed to have in
2007, the potential he still has, Hamilton needs to do all of those things,
whether at Mercedes or elsewhere. He needs to claim at least one more title.
If Hamilton can do that then his fondness for trips to LA, for socialising
with celebrities, for bringing his pet pooch to races will rightly be deemed
an irrelevance.
If not, he risks being remembered as a brilliant but inconsistent talent, or
worse, a wasted one.
Lewis on why losing Nicole turned world ‘upside down’
At the German Grand Prix
“You have different people who are able to keep in their emotions – my Finnish
trainer, for example – who don’t show any emotion and they are always able
to control it.
“Me, I wear my heart on my sleeve and that gets me in trouble… I’m
trying my hardest to be positive but I’m going through a tough time at the
moment with the loss of someone really, really special in my life.
“My world’s turned upside down, but I have a job to motivate my team and
if I come in with my head down and negative energy then that goes around my
mechanics who work day and night, and I don’t ever want that.
“So I’m really trying to pull myself together.”
July 19 @LewisHamilton
If you’ve found that special someone, don’t EVER let them go no matter what!!
Nothing in this world is more important.
July 19 @LewisHamilton
My hideaway … pouring my heart into this track (Hamilton, right, takes solace
in his home music studio).
July 23 @LewisHamilton
Nicole once told me how beautiful Vienna was, now I see she was right (Austria
brings back yet more reminders).