bhallg2k wrote:I think Hamilton is a classic case of getting too much too soon and that McLaren has done him a great disservice by putting him in their car immediately as he entered F1. His talent is as obvious now as it was then, but there's a reason why Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari have their drivers placed elsewhere down the grid before being called up to "Big League" service.
That Alonso, the defending two-time defending World Champion, imploded in 2007 for reasons completely unrelated to his rookie teammate only made matters worse. I get the distinct feeling that Hamilton has no grounding whatsoever, and I think that's extremely problematic.
It's not necessarily his fault, either. His first impression of F1 must have made him feel invincible, as he had a car that would do anything he wanted - the unofficial champ - and he regularly handled his drowning two-time Champ of a teammate. There's no doubt in my mind that those results, even if circumstantial, inflated his ego quite a bit. How could they not? Were it me, I'd likely be tempted to try to actually walk on water.
But, look at him now. He's not #1 at his team anymore, and he makes a lot of mistakes, especially when he tries to repeat the magic he found with the magic wands McLaren gave him in 2007 and 2008.
He says all the right things and seems to make all the right moves. But after all of the talk, I was shocked to see the "newly-focused" Hamilton with Nicole Scherzinger and Lenny Kravitz as his guests in the garage for the first race this year. That's what focus looks like?
I'm convinced he has to go elsewhere. He's under the false, if perhaps slightly noble, impression that he is McLaren. You can see it on his face that he wears defeat like the shame of someone who's totally at fault, much the same way he celebrates victories as if they are solely his own. He's got the appropriate rhetoric mastered in his comments, but the eyes never lie.
I think he needs to go somewhere where doing everything just right nets a miraculous 8th-place finish - no, that is not a Ferrari suggestion. I just think that understanding limitations is vital in the knife-edge world of F1, where doing too much is just as detrimental as not doing enough.
That would take a minor miracle, because I don't know that he has the wherewithal to go somewhere to build his own legacy. His handlers certainly don't. Hamilton at McLaren is a cash-cow, and that's notoriously all they care about.
Like I said, those are just my thoughts. They're not an attack.
EDIT: Man, I've really got to stop writing books for posts.
The reason Ferrari and Red Bull incubate their drivers isn't for the driver's benefit but because they don't want to take a risk with a driver. McLaren took a HUGE risk putting Hamilton straight into the A-team with many people criticising them for it before the start of the season. Indeed if memory serves the expectation even at McLaren was that Hamilton would take a few races to get up to speed and even score solid points finishes.
For some reason there's a widespread belief that F1 drivers need to serve a year or two in a rubbish car in order to grow or become more complete, but I actually think Hamilton demonstrates that this isn't the case. People are just having a very selective memory about what he has achieved and are overlooking his performances when the McLaren was a dog. And how many potentially great drivers have had there careers crushed because of a poor car, or have been flattered by doing well in a poor car only to show no sign of championship winning material when given a great car (think Fisichella for example).
Alonso's 'implosion' is also a lot more complex than you make out. In his rookie year Hamilton was coming into F1 at a time when many of the top drivers were having to change their driving styles to adapt to new tyres. This, to a degree, flattered his early performances where had the top drivers been fully up to speed they probably would have been another tenth or two quicker. In some ways this kept him in touch with Alonso in those early races, but he was still having to learn how to set the car up for the race and get the best out of the tyres over a race distance. This led to strong qualifying performances but slipping back a tenth or two in the races, just about keeping in touch with the race leader but not being able to challenge.
But he was able to take advantage of strong performances in those early races to put pressure on Alonso through an impressive run of podium finishes. By the Canadian GP Hamilton was fully up to speed in the races and to me that GP weekend was where Alonso imploded. It was widely commented by people like Brundle that Alonso just could not reconcile the fact that Hamilton was as fast as him and was beating him fair and square. It was then that the conspiracy theories and requests to the team to give Alonso an advantage that started his decline.
But Hamilton had already established himself at that point as being able to challenge and beat Alonso in equal machinery. And despite Alonso's grumbles and psychological issues over the remainder of the season, he was given equal machinery and opportunity over the entire rest of the season. Alonso under performed in a couple of races, as did Hamilton, but over the course of the entire season they slugged it out and came out equal on points with Hamilton technically beating him. Had McLaren favoured Alonso then he probably would have been world champion. Had they actually given Hamilton unfair advantage, such as letting him race Alonso at Monaco instead of playing it safe and holding station, then Hamilton probably would have been world champion.
Moving on to this last season or so and there are a lot of complex reasons for Hamilton's performances. My own view is that the tyres aren't helping him. They're flattering Vettel and Button to a degree by compromising the attacking drivers style and stopping them from cranking out the lap times. Race pace is four or five seconds off qualifying even in the final stint as drivers have to tip toe around conserving their tyres. Compare that to the Bridgestone tyres where fastest laps in the race were only a few tenths to a second off qualifying pace.
But his biggest problem is that he didn't have a proper childhood. He never had a chance to grow up and become his own man before entering F1 and that's left him stabbing around for happiness ever since. Having his father around for the first couple of seasons kept his feet on the ground and kept him focussed, but that strained their relationship to breaking point. Ever since then Lewis seems to have embraced celebrity culture and is trying to seek comfort from the rich and famous, but he really doesn't look happy.
In many ways it's similar to what Jenson went through, initial success led to a playboy lifestyle. Button ultimately turned it around and has now at least shown Lewis what he is missing. I don't think there has ever been a more relaxed and grounded driver in F1 than Jenson and that is also giving him the mental freedom to perform very consistently. That isn't the only way to do it though, most of the other champions throughout time have needed much more focus than that. Think back to the spiritual intensity of a Senna or the single minded pursuit of Schumacher. There's more than one way to approach it.
Hamilton wouldn't necessarily fare any better elsewhere. The tyres would still be the same, the celebrities and hangers on would still be there, he'd just have a crappy car that wouldn't let him perform. He's had the difficult cars, think how he performed in the early 2009 races where he had to battle through from near the back of the grid. He's proven he has the talent, he knows what it's like to drive a car like that, how is sticking him in a non-front running car going to help him in any way? The celeb culture would continue, they'd all just say it was the car stopping him from performing.
I understand where you are coming from and agree that something has to change for Hamilton. But frankly until the pop star babe and celebrity 'super stars' go I don't think Lewis will find the focus he needs to win. The only other hope is that McLaren and / or Pirelli get on top of the tyres and give him something he can attack with.
