Hurrah for Hamilton
Every schoolboy probably had the words of Rudyard Kipling's timeless piece of inspirational poetry "If" repeatedly drummed into his head at home and at school while they were growing up. Never were the words more apposite than yesterday afternoon in Montreal: "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…you'll be a Man my son!" In the most chaotic Canadian Grand Prix in recent memory, Lewis Hamilton demonstrated calm, self-assured brilliance while everyone else seemed to go potty. Hamilton is so supremely talented he appears to float above lesser mortals. His command of a Formula One car is so complete, so effortless that one feels that he was born to race one. Yesterday, Hamilton looked like a champion while virtually all the other drivers looked like rookies. To Hamilton a Formula One car is just a bigger, faster go-kart. It was inevitable that the young man would win a race this season but to achieve it so soon and so expertly was astounding.
When Hamilton nailed pole position on Saturday nearly half a second ahead of reigning world champion, Fernando Alonso, at a circuit which he had never seen before, you knew it was his destiny to win in Canada. The lad's presence seemed to unnerve his fellow drivers to such an extent that one after the other crashed into the wall and scattered debris everywhere. Thus, Hamilton had to win the race not once but five times. Each time he built up a comfortable cushion ahead of Nick Heidfeld another fool would smash his car into a wall and bring out the safety car (most dramatically, Robert Kubica who defied death before our eyes). Hamilton would then have to do it all over again. Each time he simply got on with the job as though it was the most normal thing in the world, as though this is what he did every day of the week. I was reminded of the Bishop of Southwark last Christmas. The man of the cloth attended a reception at the Irish embassy in London and got well and truly bladdered. He then crawled into a parked Mercedes which he did not own and began throwing toys about. When the owners arrived and found the pissed Bishop trashing their car, they asked him who he was and what the devil he was doing. The bishop sagely told them where to go with the immortal words "I am the Bishop of Southwark, it's what I do."
If you looked at the newspapers in Montreal and London on Sunday morning you would have been forgiven for thinking there was nobody but Lewis Hamilton racing that afternoon. The tone of the coverage was along the lines of "hey chaps, there is this new genius racing this afternoon and you must see him - oh, and by the way, there might be a few other chaps driving today but they are only there to make up the numbers." This probably explains why chaos broke out in Hamilton's wake. From the first corner when Alonso attempted a desperate, audacious passing manoeuvre, forgot his braking point and ran wide, you knew his goose was stewed. The world champion - a calculating man renowned for keeping his head in times of stress - had lost it. It didn't' happen on only one occasion. I lost count of the number of times Alonso's unforced errors cost him dearly. The litany of mistakes on a dry track shocked me. Yes, there are no run-off areas in Montreal (and Monaco) but everyone knows this and usually comes prepared for it. With few exceptions the entire grid was spooked by what will now go down in legend as "the Hamilton effect".
For the double world champion to be repeatedly shown up by his rookie team-mate is not doing his self esteem any good. The only newspapers fighting Alonso's corner are the Spanish ones. It would be rash and unfair to write off the little Spaniard just yet. We are experiencing a phenomenon like no one has ever seen but we must not forget Alonso's prodigious talent and - lest it be forgotten - his relative youth (he is only 25 for goodness sake!). Maintaining a sense of proportion in times like these, however, is dashed difficult. I try and tell myself not to allow my emotions to cloud my judgment and then I see young Hamilton's smiling face on the front page of every newspaper and all my reasoning flies out of the window. When measured past geniuses given to carefully chosen words - men like Sir Jackie Stewart, Sir Stirling Moss and Nikki Lauda - all line up to heap praise on the young man, one has to pay attention. Even the most famously egotistical of recent Formula One drivers, Eddie Irvine, a man stinting of admiration of anyone other than Eddie Irvine could not help but give his tuppence worth in recognition of Lewis Hamilton. When asked whether he thought Hamilton was "one of the greats" Irvine witheringly replied "there is no evidence to suggest that he isn't".
It was a funny old race, memorable for more than just the mayhem. Other than the winner, the man who made my afternoon was Super Aguri driver Takuma Sato. Sato-san has always had a maverick approach to driving. You try and get out of his way when he attempts one of his kamikaze manoeuvres or you are liable to get T-boned. Yesterday was a special day for the Japanese driver. Things were working out rather well for him and he managed to finish way up in sixth place - a splendid achievement for a team using a leftover Honda engine from last year while the works team itself couldn't even finish the race! The sight of the world champion in a McLaren having to yield to Takuma Sato in a Super Aguri really was a joy to behold. Not, mind you, that I wish ill-luck on Alonso but moments like those make for stunning television.
Felipe Massa was black-flagged for ignoring a red light in the pit lane. Kimi Raikkonen had neither the pace to match McLaren nor BMW. Ferrari have worringly gone off the boil. North America should be theirs for the taking, it is not. There is less than a week to go to the next race, hardly any time to change much. I am afraid we could be seeing a repeat of Canada in Indianapolis. I don't particularly mind…
Gitau
11 June 2007
When Hamilton nailed pole position on Saturday nearly half a second ahead of reigning world champion, Fernando Alonso, at a circuit which he had never seen before, you knew it was his destiny to win in Canada. The lad's presence seemed to unnerve his fellow drivers to such an extent that one after the other crashed into the wall and scattered debris everywhere. Thus, Hamilton had to win the race not once but five times. Each time he built up a comfortable cushion ahead of Nick Heidfeld another fool would smash his car into a wall and bring out the safety car (most dramatically, Robert Kubica who defied death before our eyes). Hamilton would then have to do it all over again. Each time he simply got on with the job as though it was the most normal thing in the world, as though this is what he did every day of the week. I was reminded of the Bishop of Southwark last Christmas. The man of the cloth attended a reception at the Irish embassy in London and got well and truly bladdered. He then crawled into a parked Mercedes which he did not own and began throwing toys about. When the owners arrived and found the pissed Bishop trashing their car, they asked him who he was and what the devil he was doing. The bishop sagely told them where to go with the immortal words "I am the Bishop of Southwark, it's what I do."
If you looked at the newspapers in Montreal and London on Sunday morning you would have been forgiven for thinking there was nobody but Lewis Hamilton racing that afternoon. The tone of the coverage was along the lines of "hey chaps, there is this new genius racing this afternoon and you must see him - oh, and by the way, there might be a few other chaps driving today but they are only there to make up the numbers." This probably explains why chaos broke out in Hamilton's wake. From the first corner when Alonso attempted a desperate, audacious passing manoeuvre, forgot his braking point and ran wide, you knew his goose was stewed. The world champion - a calculating man renowned for keeping his head in times of stress - had lost it. It didn't' happen on only one occasion. I lost count of the number of times Alonso's unforced errors cost him dearly. The litany of mistakes on a dry track shocked me. Yes, there are no run-off areas in Montreal (and Monaco) but everyone knows this and usually comes prepared for it. With few exceptions the entire grid was spooked by what will now go down in legend as "the Hamilton effect".
For the double world champion to be repeatedly shown up by his rookie team-mate is not doing his self esteem any good. The only newspapers fighting Alonso's corner are the Spanish ones. It would be rash and unfair to write off the little Spaniard just yet. We are experiencing a phenomenon like no one has ever seen but we must not forget Alonso's prodigious talent and - lest it be forgotten - his relative youth (he is only 25 for goodness sake!). Maintaining a sense of proportion in times like these, however, is dashed difficult. I try and tell myself not to allow my emotions to cloud my judgment and then I see young Hamilton's smiling face on the front page of every newspaper and all my reasoning flies out of the window. When measured past geniuses given to carefully chosen words - men like Sir Jackie Stewart, Sir Stirling Moss and Nikki Lauda - all line up to heap praise on the young man, one has to pay attention. Even the most famously egotistical of recent Formula One drivers, Eddie Irvine, a man stinting of admiration of anyone other than Eddie Irvine could not help but give his tuppence worth in recognition of Lewis Hamilton. When asked whether he thought Hamilton was "one of the greats" Irvine witheringly replied "there is no evidence to suggest that he isn't".
It was a funny old race, memorable for more than just the mayhem. Other than the winner, the man who made my afternoon was Super Aguri driver Takuma Sato. Sato-san has always had a maverick approach to driving. You try and get out of his way when he attempts one of his kamikaze manoeuvres or you are liable to get T-boned. Yesterday was a special day for the Japanese driver. Things were working out rather well for him and he managed to finish way up in sixth place - a splendid achievement for a team using a leftover Honda engine from last year while the works team itself couldn't even finish the race! The sight of the world champion in a McLaren having to yield to Takuma Sato in a Super Aguri really was a joy to behold. Not, mind you, that I wish ill-luck on Alonso but moments like those make for stunning television.
Felipe Massa was black-flagged for ignoring a red light in the pit lane. Kimi Raikkonen had neither the pace to match McLaren nor BMW. Ferrari have worringly gone off the boil. North America should be theirs for the taking, it is not. There is less than a week to go to the next race, hardly any time to change much. I am afraid we could be seeing a repeat of Canada in Indianapolis. I don't particularly mind…
Gitau
11 June 2007
posted by Gitau at 4:12 pm
<< Home