Hamilton: Collateral Damage

I found the article below in one of the Formula 1 News websites and decided that I had to write about this...


After Sunday’s race in Montreal, triple title winner Niki Lauda was particularly vocal of the Stevenage man, claiming that he was endangering the lives of himself and those around him on the race track.

“Lewis is a passionate racing driver and he has to go for things,” Team Principal Whitmarsh told the Press Association. “He's clearly had an unfortunate run, whether you look at it statistically or objectively. I suspect I'm not the most impartial; I want Lewis to attack and obviously I don't want him to have contact with cars.

“But at the same time, if he holds back for fear of having contact then he won't be the great racer he is and do the job he has to do. I'm sure he'll continue to be a very tough racer and have many successes ahead in his career.”


Somewhere, the fact that this is a sport where highly skilled drivers are driving machines at 200 to 300 Kms/Hr on road layouts where you and I would fear to do even 100 Kms/Hr is lost. Yes a sport requires you to compete, to get ahead, to forge your way, but not at the cost of endangering others.

Lewis Hamilton takes attacking the car in front quite literally. This is how 'Attack' is defined in the man's dictionary.

Attack: -verb- To unnecessarily drive into any vehicle in front of you. To put your car in strange positions on the track and expect the other cars to disappear or drive into the grass to let you through.

He just does not have the ability to understand what can be pulled off and what cannot be. Incidentally, if he tries these moves when a Williams or some other car from the mid-field is in front, they generally get intimidated and let him through and he comes off looking good. The same does not apply with a car which is a front-runner. Which is where he seems to run into trouble.

In Monaco, it was his desperation not to get lapped, which led him to cause the massive pile up, which brought out the Red Flag and ruined the last 10 laps. It was the desperation to in terms with the Red Bull that caused him to do a lot of stupid things in Canada, including running into his own team-mate.

Lewis Hamilton is a egoist and a senseless fool. It is a crime to let him continue to drive on the F1 track, akin to collusion for murder.