Hamilton leaves us all speechless

When it comes to Formula One, there is no commentator to whose voice I pay closer attention than Sir Jackie Stewart. His achievements as a racing driver are too great to go into here but he has done more than win three championships in the sport. Sir Jackie once owned a Formula One team and knows all about spotting talent. He also has been more intimately involved with the British Racing Drivers Club than anybody and knows a fair bit about nurturing young drivers. Sir Jackie's Scottish Presbyterian roots make for a less excitable character than many in the paddock. He tends to choose his words very carefully. If you were looking for a voice of reason in description of Mr Lewis Hamilton, you could do a lot worse than Sir Jackie Stewart.

When I wake to the distinctly Scottish accent of Sir Jackie Stewart on the radio saying that "it would not be inconceivable for Lewis Hamilton to win the world championship this year" I realise that we are now in unchartered territory. No one has ever seen anything like this before, so there is a palpable absence of comprehension. People just do not know what to make of this young driver. He is, quite simply, phenomenal. In only his third ever Grand Prix, Hamilton turned up in Bahrain and finished second behind Felipe Massa's Ferrari. Had it not been for a misjudged refuelling strategy which compromised the speed of both McLarens yesterday, Hamilton could easily have been the chap on the top step of the podium. Throughout the weekend, the young Brit was unmistakeably superior to his team-mate and double world champion, Fernando Alonso. The points table now has three drivers at the top with an equal number of points - 22 each. Unbelievably, Hamilton is one of the three. Little wonder then that the emotion experienced by the world champion when observing the progress of his team-mate is fear.

Britain adores a sporting hero. Witness the madness there once was about a brainless footballer married to a person who redefines tastelessness and you will have some idea what I am talking about. But now that David Beckham's star has dropped from the firmament, there is a national thirst, nay, craving for a sporting hero. Now there is one: a charming, handsome young man who is taking Formula One by storm. The madness here has already begun. Lewis Hamilton hasn't been anywhere near these shores for seven weeks. He has no idea what is about to hit him when he lands in London later this week. Chipo smiled at the lad's charming naiveté when he said he hoped he would still be able to walk the streets when he comes home. You poor chap, is all I can say. Stay out there for as long as possible. Savour your privacy. Go out to a bar and get slaughtered. Do everything you wanted to do in the next few days, dear boy. Life, I am afraid, will never ever be the same again…

I did not expect to but I rather enjoyed the Bahrain Grand Prix. There were some edge of the seat moments and some true sporting action. David Coulthard was putting on a superb display of overtaking by leapfrogging his way from twenty-first to seventh when, perhaps inevitably, his Red Bull gave up the ghost. Good entertainment, though. Although I am fond of Fernando Alonso, I must admit to enjoying the audacious move pulled on him by Nick Heidfeld. The German timed his move so adroitly that there was nothing the world champion could do to defend his fourth place. One moment he was contemplating a race without a visit to the podium but at least earning a damage limiting five points and the next he was staring into the gearbox of Heidfeld's BMW. There will be long faces in Stuttgart today and beaming smiles in Munich: Mercedes don't like losing to BMW.

As we contemplate a month without any racing, it is interesting to reflect that only two men have been on the podium at each Grand Prix thus far: Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton. For the second race in a row Raikkonen was chasing down the McLaren to the very end but never quite getting close enough to have a go at overtaking. I don't think Raikkonen particularly enjoys being on the podium if he is not on the top step. In the post podium press conference, the Finn looked mightily bored. Shunning the orange juice placed before him, he fished out a hip flask and helped himself to a healthy slug of vodka. Now there's a guy who doesn't mess about!

I will steer clear of predictions. Ask me what I think is going to happen once the racing comes back to Europe and the answer will be I haven't the foggiest idea. Much bigger brains than mine are baffled. Is it premature to be making comparisons with Tiger Woods? Search me, matey, I am certainly not saying!

Gitau
16 April 2007

The Sheikhs' Folly

There is a stretch of water which has exercised the imagination of human beings far more greatly than any other. Lives have been lost because of it. Politicians’ careers have been made or destroyed by it. The livelihood of millions is dependent upon what happens within it. It is called the Persian Gulf. The reason is quite simple and yet incredibly complicated: oil. The countries with shores daily kissed by the waters of the Gulf are blessed (or cursed - depending on how you choose to look at it) with barrel-loads of the stuff. There is more oil there than anywhere else on the planet. Jolly good, you might say. Let's fill our boots with Gulf oil then!

There is a slight problem, unfortunately. The chaps who live in these Gulf countries are culturally a long way removed from the Europeans with an unquenchable thirst for the black, sticky stuff. They see life a little differently. Where an Englishman might sport a snazzy bowler, the Arab prefers to drape his head in a large handkerchief. The best cut trousers of the French boulevardier mean nothing to a chap who prefers to hang loose in a flowing robe (there could be something in this, you know - European fertility rates have been dropping for a considerable while!). A friendly Spaniard might offer you a Fortuna from his pack of twenty but an Arab would rather invite you to sit and puff away with him at a sheesha hubbly-bubbly pipe. Notwithstanding these things, the European has been forced to deal with the Arab on the Arab's terms for ages. Pragmatism and guile has always been the way of the European. Want something you need? Why, cosy up to the chap who has it, why don't you? If all else fails you can always threaten the swarthy chap with that useful European device: war.

I digress. In selling this precious substance the Arabs have grown wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. So, in come the Europeans again. Take the Arab's oil and give him some loot for it, then come back and get him to part with said loot; all the while laying on the charm for all you are worth. Show the Arab the joys of the world: champagne, caviar, cabaret girls and cars. Yes, cars - very fast ones!

We, thus, return to the most ridiculously located Formula One circuit in the world, the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain. I have consistently made no secret of my loathing of this ghastly, stylised circuit, but I watch the Bahrain Grand Prix each year nonetheless. When circuits like the lovely A1 Ring in Austria are knocked off the calendar and worthy countries like South Africa are denied a Grand Prix opportunity because of the lure of some sheikh playboy's dough, I kick walls in despair. And this is not the end of the ridiculous charade - they are building a new circuit in another part of the Arab desert for an Abu Dhabi Grand Prix! Heaven help us! But, again, I digress…

2007 is proving to be the most exciting season in recent memory. The world champion, Fernando Alonso, has lost nothing in the switch to McLaren. If anything he has gained in confidence and stature. His almost effortless command of the last race in Malaysia and his skilful damage limitation in Melbourne has put him at the top of the points table in the crucial world championship stakes. Two points behind him, demonstrating equal flawlessness in new surroundings, is the ice man, Kimi Raikkonen. This paragraph should end there shouldn't it? I should be saying "the 2007 championship battle is now clear; it will be fought between these two titans of speed" but I can't. For two points behind Raikkonen, causing serious problems for both men at the top and charmingly having us on the edge of our seats each time he dons his yellow helmet, is the unbelievable rookie, Lewis Hamilton.

The last British world champion, Damon Hill, speaking before the season began, said that he expected Hamilton to win a race before the end of the season. Everyone - and I include myself in this damnable lot - thought Hill was speaking through his arse. Well, I expect soon to be helping myself to healthy portions of humble pie. Third in his first ever Grand Prix, second in his second…could it be first in his third? A bit of calmness is called for here. As Chipo often reminds me, there is a risk of jinxing the lad. What he has done, though, is bought himself loads of goodwill. Even if he makes a howler of a mistake later in the season - which, mark my words, he will - we will happily let him get away with it. The boy is a wonder!

The hypocrisy of the Bahraini sheikhs who run the Bahrain Grand Prix means that this is the only race where no champagne is sprayed on the podium (never mind that these self-same sheikhs will be quaffing gallons of the stuff in their hotel suites!). So get yourselves some fizzy water for a change. Even if you may have to grin and bear it,

Make the most of Bahrain!

Gitau
13 April 2007

The Rookie Blows Sepang Away

If you looked carefully at Fernando Alonso’s face in the post-race interview yesterday, he wore an expression I have never before seen him wear: fear. Never mind that he had just scored his first victory of the season, Fernando was afraid. To the left of him was the competition: a hard living, non-smiling Finn in a super quick Ferrari. To the right of him was the future: Lewis Hamilton.

The word champion was justified in feeling afraid. He now knows that he will never be allowed to dominate the world of Formula One like the German who retired last year. Ferrari have not lost any of their zest and will do all they can to spoil Alonso’s party – particularly because they had painfully to concede the world championship to Renault for two consecutive years because of the dastardly little Spaniard. But what is worse is the awful, terrifying prospect of having to fight against an enemy such as Alonso has never known. And one who wears the same livery and is paid by the same chaps as his own employers. A nightmare, for want of a better description. Not good.

Hamilton came into Formula One and stunned everyone with his performance in Melbourne. “Beginners luck,” some said, “he can’t keep it up at this level. This is not Karting or GP2, this is F1!” Well, more fool they. Lewis Hamilton turns up and throws the book of superlatives out of the window. This is not Britain’s answer to Michael Schumacher. Hardly. This is an entirely new story. I have never seen anything like it.

Having qualified in fourth place behind the Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen and his team-mate, Alonso, Hamilton showed – just as he had in Australia – that he had bollocks the size of an ox. He knows the braking point of each driver and skilfully (some might say crazily!) outbrakes everyone. By turn two Hamilton had both Ferraris behind him, was allowing his team-mate clear breathing space ahead and now had the massively challenging job of defending his second position from the quicker, lighter, angrier Ferraris. To keep this together for more than a few laps would have been a splendid achievement. To do so for the entire length of the toughest race on the Grand Prix circuit in weather conditions which give people pause before embarking upon life-threatening exertions like shagging was little short of the stuff of genius. Lewis Hamilton I salute you.

It is now clear where we are in 2007. Felipe Massa is an overpromoted interloper. He has raw talent but not the composure to drive at the top level (take a few lessons from Lewis, Felipe, why don’t you?). This leaves three major players: Raikkonen, Alonso and that boy Hamilton. What a season we have ahead of us.

Was anybody else driving yesterday? Well, I didn’t really notice. Jenson Button? Who he?

I sometimes say this for the heck of it but now I really cannot bear to wait until the next race. Entertainment has been restored to the pinnacle of motor racing. We couldn’t have asked for a better Easter present. Hallelujah!

Gitau
9 April 2007

Easter and a motor race in sultry Malaysia

While at university in the nineteen-eighties, I foolhardily allowed myself to fall into the clutches of a comely Liverpudlian lass who went by the slightly disturbing name of Dawn. What began as a delightful venture descended into the stuff of which crab-dinner-fuelled nightmares are made. Dawn, you see, had greater clinging power than the vilest leech. Friends regularly remarked upon my breathless, drawn appearance during those awful days. Wisdom has since taught me to steer well clear of females named after hours of the day. I curl the upper lip at the sight of any smiling “Afternoon” and run for dear life when approached by a “Sunset”.

As if Dawn was not enough to contend with, I had, at the same time, unwittingly struck up a firm friendship with an Indian fellow from Malaysia called Ramesh. The trouble was that the friendship was not reciprocal. Whereas Ramesh thrived on being in my company, I shrank from his. I had thus landed myself in the thickest of soups. No sooner would I gratefully wish Dawn goodbye than Ramesh would be “Hi Gitau-ing!” at me with abandon. On one particularly exhausting evening I succeeded in convincing Dawn I was so infested with a loathsome lurgy that I had to be asleep within the hour if I was to stand any chance of seeing another morning. Reluctantly, Dawn withdrew. Just as I was about to curl up with my well thumbed copy of Conan Doyle’s A Study in Sarlet, Ramesh chose to haunt my premises again. I realised then that if my sanity stood any chance of survival, radical action was necessary.

The solution to the problem presented itself to me one sleepless night. In hindsight it seems obvious: Dawn and Ramesh were sundered souls which needed pairing. With a modicum of effort – the odd Ramesh-flavoured pearl dropped carefully into Dawn’s ear and the prospect of insatiable totty waved at a chap whose last acquaintance with the female bosom was at the ripe old age of nine months – worked like magic. Dawn and Ramesh took to each other like pigs to mud. Sadly, though, I had made a miscalculation. Contrary to my expectation of a return to a semblance of equilibrium, the pestilence was about to get worse. Dawn – a woman whose opinion of herself would make Naomi Campbell blush – saw my efforts as a sacrifice on a par with Abraham offering his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice to Jehovah and venerated me as a consequence. To Ramesh I was James Bond, Muhammad Ali and Jesus Christ rolled into one. Thenceforth I suffered not the presence of Dawn or Ramesh but that of Dawn and Ramesh continually. The expression which, doubtless, springs to your mind now, rhymes with “clucking bell”. Indeed.

That which cannot be avoided must be endured and so, stoically, I accepted my fate. Nearly two decades later I can draw some benefit from the experience. When she wasn’t preening herself or cooing at Ramesh, Dawn would gush endlessly about the joys of Liverpool. Not to be outdone, when able to extract his tongue from Dawn’s ear, Ramesh would wax lyrical about the shocks Malaysia was about to thrust upon the world. It was from him that I learned that by the end of the penultimate decade of the last century, Malaysia had risen in status from a “developing country” (meaning piss-poor Third World Republic) to a “newly industrialised country”. “Just you wait,” said Ramesh, “we will have the technological wonders of the world in the next ten years. Mark my words.”

How right he was. In 1998, Malaysia opened the Petronas Towers, the world’s tallest twin-tower complex. This was not a cheap copy of the soon-to-be-destroyed World Trade Centre in New York. No. It was a jaw dropping architectural achievement worthy of the best of them. Malaysia was demanding that the world sat up and paid attention to it. In relatively short order, the magnificent Sepang motor racing circuit opened for business a year later. Again, this was no simulacrum of venerable old circuits like Brands Hatch or Spa. Oh no. Sepang was Malaysia’s response to the circuit design rule book: tear it up and throw it away. Sepang was designed to be – and still is - the most challenging circuit in the world. Racing at the speeds Sepang requires in the heat and extreme humidity of Malaysia makes outrageous demands on the human body. This is a circuit which makes drivers suffer. Welcome, friends, to the now legendary Malaysian Grand Prix.

Michael Schumacher set the benchmark at the opening race in 1999 and his belief-defying performance is yet to be equalled. Having been forced to spend months away by injury, he returned to Formula One at a circuit he did not know and proved to everyone why he was the man to fear. But we are in a new era now. Schumacher now wears slippers and smokes a pipe. This is the era of the maverick, vodka-swilling, tit-fondling Finn at Ferrari, Kimi Raikkonen, the softly spoken world champion, Fernando Alonso, and the first ever black man in Formula One, Lewis Hamiton. Australia offered us a tasty titbit but Malaysia has the potential for a great deal more.

A word in your ear before I go: look out for Felipe Massa. He is not a very happy fellow. He did an excellent job as Michael Schumacher’s last team-mate – a worthy team-mate it must be said - and feels somewhat sidelined by the attention being lavished on his new team-mate, Raikkonen. To Massa’s mind, Raikkonen is not Schumacher’s successor, he is. This is why he was so inconsolable after his car broke down in qualifying in Melbourne and was forced to sit by the pit wall watching Raikkonen comfortably cruise to an easy pole position. I do not think he enjoyed Raikkonen’s imperious win the next day much either. Things like that rankle with the Latin temperament (remember, he is Brazilian). Massa, therefore, has something to prove.

The heat and humidity of Malaysia does not seem to inspire great brewing talent as far as I know (but I will happily accept informed contradiction), so I cannot recommend any tipple from that part of the world (that blister, Ramesh, was teetotal, I hasten to add!). In times like these, then, reach for the Belgian beer dictionary. If you can’t find something you like within it, seek a thick rope and a sturdy tree…

If you can bear to tear yourself away from the Easter celebrations in your local church,

Enjoy Malaysia!

Gitau
Good Friday, 6 April 2007