The unhappy man

In his famous painting, The Treachery of Images, the Belgian surrealist artist, René Magritte depicts a large pipe beneath which are the puzzling words Ceci n’est pas une pipe (This is not a pipe). The picture is stark and very simple: other than the pipe, there is nothing on the canvas but those baffling words in French and Magritte’s tidy little signature in the bottom right hand corner. The obvious question asked by everyone facing the image for the first time is “Well, if it isn’t a pipe what on earth is it?” 

Magritte’s reply to the question made many people want to punch him (I suppose that, in some ways, was the point of Surrealism): “Can you stuff it with tobacco and smoke it? No, it’s just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture ‘This is a pipe,’ I would have been lying!”

A copy of The Treachery of Images hangs on a wall in my flat and I have dined out for years on the reactions it has provoked in the faces of guests to whose attention I have drawn the image. Best of all was a less than amused chap who threatened to empty the contents of his glass on my head because he thought I was being too clever by half.



This is not a picture of a McLaren Formula One driver.

“Now you are being too clever by half, Gitau,” I hear you snarl, “Lewis Hamilton has only ever driven for McLaren in Formula One!” Allow me to explain. You would not have thought this of a man who bagged pole position on Saturday and cruised to a brilliant win at Monza yesterday but Hamilton is not all together happy at McLaren. Winning at Monza means that Hamilton has now joined an exclusive club of drivers who have won Grands Prix at each of the remaining “classic” circuits on the calendar (Silverstone, Spa, Monaco and Monza) but you would not have thought it bore any significance in his mind if his behaviour after the race yesterday was the yardstick for assessing its worth.

The Monza podium is unique in its positioning. It juts out above a sea of fans – admittedly clad in Ferrari red, but there we are – all round it, like a cloud upon which a victorious God stands staring down at adoring mortals. But Hamilton did not climb onto the top step of the Monza podium beaming with happiness and contentment. Hardly. As The Guardian expertly put it this morning “Lewis Hamilton climbed the victory podium with the demeanour of a man ascending the scaffold.”

Not much is being said either by Hamilton himself or the powers that be at McLaren but it is clear that the past few months have been tense between the team and its most talented driver. It is no secret that Hamilton’s contract at McLaren runs out at the end of this season and the two sides have been negotiating a renewal for a few months. The negotiations are clearly not going very well. When asked whether he knew which team he would be representing in 2013, Hamilton replied with an emphatic “No”. Ron Dennis, the executive chairman and principal shareholder of McLaren spoke about his view of things in July and was as blunt as only he can be:"I think people get the wrong impression. When I last looked at the contract, I was paying him. It's a question of whether we employ him, not the other way round."

There have been rumours, none of which denied by either side, that Hamilton is in advanced negotiations for a seat at Mercedes. I think if he were to leave McLaren for Mercedes it would be a mistake. McLaren have produced a competitive car and are much better able to assist Hamilton’s pursuit of a second world championship than Mercedes. I am not alone in thinking this. Niki Lauda and Sir Jackie Stewart, both three time world champions and people for whom I have nothing but the utmost respect, said as much at the weekend. They usually know what they are talking about. Sir Jackie’s view is that Hamilton does not really understand how lucky he is to be at McLaren because he has not known anything else since a very tender age. Years in F1 in different capacities have convinced Sir Jackie that the interest displayed by Mercedes in Formula One racing is transient in the long term. The decision to leave Formula One may well be reached after only five minutes in the Mercedes boardroom. By contrast McLaren represents stability and long-term commitment.

At any rate this is not the time for Hamilton to leave McLaren. He is in second place in the championship standings behind Fernando Alonso and could conceivably win it. I would have thought that the time to plan a departure would be when his negotiating power is at its peak: as a newly crowned world champion.

So what then is causing Hamilton’s discontent? It’s quite simple, really: money, the filthy lucre. And, I suppose, the other thing which turns men's heads.

This is not a picture of Lewis Hamilton’s girlfriend.

Ever since Samson was so entranced by Delilah that he lost his mind and tragically revealed the secret of his superhuman strength to her, millions of men have been rendered incapable of reason by the love they have felt for a dangerous woman.

Peter Paul Rubens: Samson and Delilah

Rubens cleverly shows Samson on Delilah’s lap while a servant, at her behest, cuts his hair. Meanwhile, the Philistines prepare to enter the room and seize Samson.

Young Mr Hamilton’s love life has become so intertwined with his F1 driving career that the two have become inseparable at the same time as being being inherently irreconcilable. A wise head would have seen that, in this, only calamity lies. But, alas, Hamilton’s isn’t a wise head.

During the long five week break after the Hungarian Grand Prix which he had won in masterful fashion, Hamilton was enjoying a relaxed afternoon reading a magazine on the patio of his house in Switzerland when his girlfriend stepped out and stood before him. Arms on her hips, she said “I’ve just been the phone to my girlfriend, darling. P. Diddy has just bought his girlfriend, a brand new Ferrari 599 GTO.”

“Has he now?” said Hamilton. “That’s nice.”

“Is that all you can say about it?”

“What else am I supposed to say?”

“Well, all I got for my birthday was some lousy jewelry!”

“If I recall, the jewelry was from Asprey and cost more than fifty thousand quid. Have you also conveniently forgotten that I chartered a Boeing 737 to fly your friends over from New York to a party in LA which I paid for.”

“Yeah, but it ain’t a Ferrari 599 GTO, is it Lewis!”

“I drive for McLaren, Nicole. I can’t be seen to be buying a Ferrari supercar. And anyway it costs more than three hundred thousand quid!”

“But P. Diddy bought one for his girlfriend!”

“I just said I drive for McLaren, Nicole. Have you somehow forgotten that tiny little fact?”

“You and your fucking team. How come P. Diddy’s girlfriend gets the Ferrari and I get diddly squat.”

Hamilton sighed. “Nicole,” he said weakly, “I am paid £15 million a year. P. Diddy makes that in a week.”

“Maybe you should think a little more closely about that!” she said as she turned on her heel and angrily left him to his now troubled thoughts.

Perhaps inevitably, Hamilton’s instructions to his negotiating team from XIX Management, the renowned experts in F1 contract negotiations, were to demand as much money as they could get. But in facing the inexperienced and naive McLaren management team, they received a gut-wrenching shock. Ron Dennis, well schooled in Mafioso thinking, bowled them a googly. When the experts said that they expected “a significant improvement northwards of our client’s current annual salary of £15 million”, Ron Dennis gave them an unblinking stare for a minute or two. He then calmly poured himself a glass of water, sipped from it and said “I will not pay a penny more than £12 million.”

Negotiations, unsurprisingly, broke down irretrievably. It was but the work of a moment to get on the telephone to the men at Mercedes. But will it work? Time will tell.

The irony of Hamilton’s situation is that it is his success at McLaren that makes him valuable to Mercedes or indeed any other team. To earn the figures he craves, he needs to achieve greater success – at McLaren. Ron Dennis knows this…

Gitau

10 September 2012