Greatness beckons
Something about the English rubs people up the wrong way. I am firmly convinced that most of the negative sentiment voiced this year about Lewis Carl Hamilton has everything to do with the fact that he is English. People ignore important factors like talent when contemplating the achievements of an Englishman. "Lucky" is the word I have most heard used in description of Hamilton. He is "Lucky" to have landed a drive with a top team. "Lucky" that he was nurtured by McLaren from an early age. "Lucky" that Formula One is an English sport and all the levers will therefore be pulled in favour of an English driver if possible. "Lucky" that McLaren is an English team with an army of English employees. "Lucky" that Hamilton's principal rival was Spanish and, ipso facto, incapable of understanding the nuances of Englishness. Put all these facts together and it is no surprise that Hamilton has been leading the 2007 Formula One world championship is it? QED wouldn't you say?
It was sometimes difficult to defend young Hamilton against these charges before this past weekend. Then the God's of Mt Fuji opened up the Japanese skies and poured out buckets and buckets of rain. At the start of the Japanese Grand Prix as the cars snaked their way round the Fuji race track behind the safety car, even experienced drivers were radioing their pits to say that it was "madness" to contemplate a race under such conditions. You could hardly see your hand in front of your face. It was far too dangerous to drive a race car at speed round there, they said. But cometh the hour cometh the man. The true test of greatness; the undisputable measure of a driver's talent, is rain. The best drivers prove their worth in the wet. To keep control on a surface with no grip requires talent. Rain has always been the great leveller. In extreme wet conditions the quality of car a driver is in and the tyre choices his team makes are as nothing. This is the one time when everyone on the circuit is equal. It is why, for example, Mark Webber in a no-hoper Red Bull stood a chance of coming second had his race not been prematurely ended by Sebastian Vettel (who himself was in with a chance of a first Toro Rosso podium!)
Rain may bring out the best in drivers but it is also the ingredient required to bring out true greatness. Every so often - perhaps once every fifteen years or so - a driver comes along who instinctively knows where the grip is on a sodden circuit. With his eyes shut he can feel his way round a gripless track and pick up speed while everyone else aquaplanes off it. I have immersed myself in Formula One trivia for years and can assure you that only three other drivers have been able to perform at Hamilton's level in Japan on Sunday: Jackie Stewart, Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher. Each of these men shared Hamilton's almost super-human ability to be at one with his machine in the wet. The hoary question has now been answered once and for all: “is it the car or is it the driver?” Forget all the bollocks about luck; Hamilton does not need any of it. I know a man who might. In the second half of Sunday's race a moody Spaniard found himself contemplating the wreckage of a car he had smacked into a brick wall. I think it is time for us to hear a little less about luck and more about respect from Mr F. Alonso. Especially now that the 2007 season is drawing to a close and two crucial races await us. The first being this weekend in Shanghai: The Chinese Grand Prix.
In 1989 I was one of many angry university students marching in protest at the shocking massacre by the Chinese Government of unarmed, innocent students demonstrating in Tiananmen Square. China was not a country anybody wanted to know about. It was a dark, evil place. We waved placards and wore bandanas round our heads in solidarity with our compatriots in Beijing. All right, I'll admit it, my customary state of torpor was no different then than it is now. I had been jolted out of bed and into action by a kick to the small of my back delivered by May, a Singaporean girl of Cantonese extraction who found my company to be of interest from time to time when I wasn't snoring. May thought it ridiculous that the Chinese government was allowed to get away with its outrageous behaviour. I thought it sufficient to shake my head solemnly at the bizarre pictures being relayed to us via television. This was not good enough for May and she made this abundantly clear. I rather enjoyed having May around, so I agreed to put up with a little shouting and go on the march.
If you had told me or any of my fellow protestors then that 15 years later I would be sitting before my television watching the first ever Chinese Grand Prix and enjoying it, I would have laughed derisively at you. It would have seemed like mockery. But China has come a long way since then. Tiananmen Square has been quietly forgotten about and China is now a major world economy. So much so that the Chinese have been permitted to join the "civilised" world and have hosted their very own Grand Prix since 2004. The Shanghai circuit - like every circuit with a name beginning with an "S" - is very fast. Hermann Tilke, the much derided German race track architect, raised his game in recent years and produced a few surprises. Shanghai has proved to be one such surprise.
What I am not hoping for is a surprise that upsets the mathematics which now point comfortably towards the result I desire. Lewis Hamilton is 12 points clear of Alonso and 17 ahead of Kimi Raikkonen. It is well within the bounds of possibility that he will win the world championship this weekend. That would be a fairy tale result. After all the messy frustration over "Spygate" and Alonso's distasteful part in it, an end in China would be splendid. After that drive in Japan it cannot be said that Hamilton does not deserve the world championship. He could have a "DNF" in China and then it will be all down to the last race in Brazil and at the end of it the world championship crown will be placed atop the head of any one of Hamilton, Alonso or Raikkonen. If Hamilton does it this weekend something in my bones tells me that Raikkonen will beat Alonso into second place.
Whatever happens over the next two races, the team-mate business between the Englishman and the Spanish world champion is definitely history. Some commentators have mentioned Ferrari as a potential home for Alonso but I can't see it. Notwithstanding the scotching of the rumours by Jean Todt, I cannot see it because Alonso has proved that he is not a team player - not ideal for the Ferrari "family". Renault is a more natural home for Alonso. But there is more mileage to be had out of this story. Watch this space.
The race on Sunday is before the crack of dawn (London time). I don't think I'll bother going to bed at all. I remember doing this seven years ago in anticipation of Michael Schumacher winning his first Ferrari world championship in Japan. I was not disappointed then. I hope I won't be this weekend. It will be an anxious, nail-biting experience but I have no doubt you too will,
Enjoy Shanghai!
Gitau
3 October 2007
PS Apologies and thanks to those of you who enquired about the missing three commentaries. I am pleased and flattered by this. No, I had not fallen off the face of the earth. I had simply gone out into the world to stock up on a few more anecdotes!
It was sometimes difficult to defend young Hamilton against these charges before this past weekend. Then the God's of Mt Fuji opened up the Japanese skies and poured out buckets and buckets of rain. At the start of the Japanese Grand Prix as the cars snaked their way round the Fuji race track behind the safety car, even experienced drivers were radioing their pits to say that it was "madness" to contemplate a race under such conditions. You could hardly see your hand in front of your face. It was far too dangerous to drive a race car at speed round there, they said. But cometh the hour cometh the man. The true test of greatness; the undisputable measure of a driver's talent, is rain. The best drivers prove their worth in the wet. To keep control on a surface with no grip requires talent. Rain has always been the great leveller. In extreme wet conditions the quality of car a driver is in and the tyre choices his team makes are as nothing. This is the one time when everyone on the circuit is equal. It is why, for example, Mark Webber in a no-hoper Red Bull stood a chance of coming second had his race not been prematurely ended by Sebastian Vettel (who himself was in with a chance of a first Toro Rosso podium!)
Rain may bring out the best in drivers but it is also the ingredient required to bring out true greatness. Every so often - perhaps once every fifteen years or so - a driver comes along who instinctively knows where the grip is on a sodden circuit. With his eyes shut he can feel his way round a gripless track and pick up speed while everyone else aquaplanes off it. I have immersed myself in Formula One trivia for years and can assure you that only three other drivers have been able to perform at Hamilton's level in Japan on Sunday: Jackie Stewart, Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher. Each of these men shared Hamilton's almost super-human ability to be at one with his machine in the wet. The hoary question has now been answered once and for all: “is it the car or is it the driver?” Forget all the bollocks about luck; Hamilton does not need any of it. I know a man who might. In the second half of Sunday's race a moody Spaniard found himself contemplating the wreckage of a car he had smacked into a brick wall. I think it is time for us to hear a little less about luck and more about respect from Mr F. Alonso. Especially now that the 2007 season is drawing to a close and two crucial races await us. The first being this weekend in Shanghai: The Chinese Grand Prix.
In 1989 I was one of many angry university students marching in protest at the shocking massacre by the Chinese Government of unarmed, innocent students demonstrating in Tiananmen Square. China was not a country anybody wanted to know about. It was a dark, evil place. We waved placards and wore bandanas round our heads in solidarity with our compatriots in Beijing. All right, I'll admit it, my customary state of torpor was no different then than it is now. I had been jolted out of bed and into action by a kick to the small of my back delivered by May, a Singaporean girl of Cantonese extraction who found my company to be of interest from time to time when I wasn't snoring. May thought it ridiculous that the Chinese government was allowed to get away with its outrageous behaviour. I thought it sufficient to shake my head solemnly at the bizarre pictures being relayed to us via television. This was not good enough for May and she made this abundantly clear. I rather enjoyed having May around, so I agreed to put up with a little shouting and go on the march.
If you had told me or any of my fellow protestors then that 15 years later I would be sitting before my television watching the first ever Chinese Grand Prix and enjoying it, I would have laughed derisively at you. It would have seemed like mockery. But China has come a long way since then. Tiananmen Square has been quietly forgotten about and China is now a major world economy. So much so that the Chinese have been permitted to join the "civilised" world and have hosted their very own Grand Prix since 2004. The Shanghai circuit - like every circuit with a name beginning with an "S" - is very fast. Hermann Tilke, the much derided German race track architect, raised his game in recent years and produced a few surprises. Shanghai has proved to be one such surprise.
What I am not hoping for is a surprise that upsets the mathematics which now point comfortably towards the result I desire. Lewis Hamilton is 12 points clear of Alonso and 17 ahead of Kimi Raikkonen. It is well within the bounds of possibility that he will win the world championship this weekend. That would be a fairy tale result. After all the messy frustration over "Spygate" and Alonso's distasteful part in it, an end in China would be splendid. After that drive in Japan it cannot be said that Hamilton does not deserve the world championship. He could have a "DNF" in China and then it will be all down to the last race in Brazil and at the end of it the world championship crown will be placed atop the head of any one of Hamilton, Alonso or Raikkonen. If Hamilton does it this weekend something in my bones tells me that Raikkonen will beat Alonso into second place.
Whatever happens over the next two races, the team-mate business between the Englishman and the Spanish world champion is definitely history. Some commentators have mentioned Ferrari as a potential home for Alonso but I can't see it. Notwithstanding the scotching of the rumours by Jean Todt, I cannot see it because Alonso has proved that he is not a team player - not ideal for the Ferrari "family". Renault is a more natural home for Alonso. But there is more mileage to be had out of this story. Watch this space.
The race on Sunday is before the crack of dawn (London time). I don't think I'll bother going to bed at all. I remember doing this seven years ago in anticipation of Michael Schumacher winning his first Ferrari world championship in Japan. I was not disappointed then. I hope I won't be this weekend. It will be an anxious, nail-biting experience but I have no doubt you too will,
Enjoy Shanghai!
Gitau
3 October 2007
PS Apologies and thanks to those of you who enquired about the missing three commentaries. I am pleased and flattered by this. No, I had not fallen off the face of the earth. I had simply gone out into the world to stock up on a few more anecdotes!
posted by Gitau at 4:24 pm
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