Lewis Hamilton is the most successful F1 driver in history but I'm not a fan
- John Quinn
- Oct 27, 2020
- 5 min read
Lewis Hamilton took the chequered flag at Sunday's Portuguese Grand Prix to claim his 92nd Formula 1 victory.
This win takes him to the top of the record books, eclipsing a record Michael Schumacher has held since 2006.
Everyone, myself included, saw Schumacher and Ferrari's dominance of F1 in the early millennium as a feat that would never be overshadowed, but as the great German racer put it himself, records are there to be broken.
In terms of race wins, Hamilton is now the most successful driver Formula 1 has ever seen. His next accolade will be to match Schumacher's record of seven World Championships, something he is very much on course to achieving this year.
Although he has yet to put pen to paper, it seems like a forgone conclusion that Hamilton will continue in F1 for at least another couple of years with Mercedes.
With very little change to the sports technical regulations for 2021, he and his team's dominance will undoubtedly continue and Hamilton will leave the sport as the most successful driver ever in terms of both wins and championships.
While I'm just about old enough to remember the start of Michael Schumacher's career in 1991 with the Irish Jordan team, I only really became engulfed in the sport when he moved to Ferrari in 1996.
Hamilton on the other-hand, joined the sport in 2007, so I have followed his career since the very beginning.
Hamilton had a head-start in F1. He joined McLaren in '07 to become teammate to reigning, two-time champion, Fernando Alonso. McLaren were still very much a front running team, so unlike most rookies, Hamilton didn't have to spend his early years in the sport driving mid or back of the pack cars.
It would be easy to scoff and say he had it easy, but the fact Hamilton had the maturity in his debut year to race and win against a World Champion, was early evidence that he was something special.
He may have even won the World Championship in his debut season, were it not for, in the most part, a fractious relationship between himself and Alonso, sparked by the Spaniard who was caught a little off guard by his new rookie team mate.
So much so, that Alonso exited McLaren stage-left after just one season. This allowed Hamilton to become number one in the team; and in only his second season of Formula 1, he became World Champion, just. (YouTube Brazil 2008 to see the chaotic title decider)
It looked like the beginning of a new era in the sport, but 2009 didn't work out that way. A new set of technical regulations saw rival teams develop better cars, which saw reigning champ Hamilton finish a distant fourth in that year's standings.
The next few season were frustrating for Hamilton. McLaren were able to build quick cars, but were plagued by unreliability. When things were working, Hamilton was quick and racked up several victories, but no serious title campaign could be launched due to too many mechanical failures.
Hamilton grew frustrated with McLaren and made, what people believed was madness, a move to Mercedes in 2013.
While Mercedes had claimed their first victory of the modern era in 2012, they were far from title challengers, but, with the persuasion of a certain Niki Lauda, Hamilton was assured Mercedes were playing the long game.
Mercedes returned to Formula One in 2010 as a full blown factory team since leaving the sport back in 1955. Mercedes had taken over Brawn GP, then reigning champions and had coaxed the mighty Michael Schumacher out of retirement to drive for them.
It was thought Mercedes were going to hit the ground running. They had all the elements. Championship winning team, big manufacturer budget and the greatest driver of them all in the car.
However, 2010 to 2012 were tough years for the German team, a slow car and a world champion passed his prime only saw the occasional points finish. The sole victory during this period being achieved by Schumacher's team mate, Nico Rosberg, at the 2012 Chinese Grand Prix.
When Schumacher came to the end of his three year contract with Mercedes, he realised it was time to leave the sport he had once dominated. Opening the door for Hamilton.
So while everyone thought Lewis was crazy to leave McLaren for Mercedes, what those of us on the outside didn't know, was that Mercedes had been working on developing their car for the 2014 season, which saw the biggest change to the sport's technical regulations in decades.
So while 2013 was a bit of a fill-in year, 2014 saw the beginning of something incredible.
New regulations saw the Turbo-Hybrid era begin in 2014 and Mercedes developed an engine (or power-unit as the sport prefers to call them) that was leagues ahead of the competition.
Hamilton, while ran relatively close by team-mate Nico Rosberg, clenched the 2014 and 2015 titles with ease. He was then surprisingly beaten by Rosberg in 2016.
Not to discredit Rosberg's achievement, but bad luck on Hamilton's side played a huge part in that outcome.
The exhaustion of competing against Hamilton saw Rosberg hang-up his racing boots after he succeeded in winning the Championship. The rivalry between the two former childhood friends had become tense, so dominant was their team that they were only fighting each other.
The negativity that had grown between the team-mates worried Mercedes, so when Rosberg retired at the end of 2016, he was replaced by the docile Valtteri Bottas, who has never really challenged Hamilton in his four seasons at the team, meaning Lewis has racked up the wins and championships with ease.
If you've made it this far, you're probably wondering, when am I getting to the point of the title of this piece. Don't worry, I'm getting there.
I needed to set up the back story, as briefly as I could (a lot happens in every season of F1).
While I have left out chunks of nuance, I hope I have at least highlighted the breath of achievement Hamilton as accrued and continues to add to.
So why am I not a fan of Lewis Hamilton?
I can not deny that his is unquestionably one of the greatest drivers the world has ever seen, he has never gone a year without a race victory and in 14 seasons, he has only been beaten by team-mates twice.
Jenson Button finished second in the 2011 Championship to Hamilton's fifth, in a year that saw Hamilton distracted by events occurring in his life away from the track; and in 2016 the stars aligned for Nico Rosberg.
Aside from these anomalies, Hamilton has dominated his team-mates and rivals alike. While four-time champion Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari pushed Hamilton and Mercedes in 2017 and 2018, the eventual winner was never really in doubt.
So yes. while I admire Hamilton's achievements, the reason I am not a fan is because his career just leaves me feeling cold.
Hamilton is the most complete driver, he is consistent and fast, but he never does any wrong.
Sport, especially high level motor-sport, is entertainment. While the on track racing is the main focus, F1 is a big giant soap-opera. Villains, controversy, drama, that's what we all tune in to see.
The most iconic champions of the pre-Hamilton era, Schumacher, Senna, Prost and even Vettel, all have a dark-side.
They would make questionable decisions on track, play the political game, shit talk rivals and sometimes let their anger boil over for us all to see.
Hamilton's career has been essentially drama free. Yes, his rookie year saw tension between him and Alonso and 2016 saw his friendship with Nico Rosberg eradicated, the frustrations came from the other-side of the garage, his team-mates frustrated at having to take on the might of his talent.
I know it seems wrong to fault Hamilton for being faultless, but as I have mentioned, F1 is entertainment and watching Hamilton just isn't entertaining, it's dull, he's too clean cut.
So while I admire his achievements and he will no doubt go on to set the bar so high, it probably will never broken, I will never consider myself a Hamilton fan.
I'm not a fan of the greatest racing driver we have ever seen, because he is just too good.
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