Britain’s new superstar

Lewis Hamilton has won his first World Championship and there is no reason why he cannot add several more to join the great figures of the sport’s post-war history, writes Richard Williams.

As a season strewn with errors and inconsistencies from all the leading protagonists reached a pulsating climax at the Interlagos that Sunday (November 2), Lewis Hamilton did exactly what he needed to do. In difficult conditions he kept a cool head, stayed out of trouble and got himself into position to grab the points he needed to ensure that those close to him would not be subjected to another season of acute hypertension.

Now he has won his first title, and there is no reason why he cannot add several more to join the great figures of the sport’s post-war history. It is certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility that he will overtake Sir Jackie Stewart to become the first of Britain’s nine world champions to take the title more than three times. By winning it 12 months after virtually throwing it away in a display of callowness, he will have added a layer of authority to his already remarkable confidence.

Most of all, his rivals will be praying that he does not prove to be the figure capable of filling the shoes vacated two years ago by Michael Schumacher, who established a greater hold over Formula One than any man since Juan Manuel Fangio in the 1950s. A Hamilton hegemony is a prospect dreaded by those who finished ahead of him in the Brazilian Grand Prix but trailed in the final standings.

The effect of Schumacher’s departure is the most plausible explanation for the wholesale errors that have made the 2008 season such an enthralling switchback ride, its outcome in doubt until the closing seconds. In the German’s absence a group of drivers have vied for supremacy, without the benefit of the performance yardstick that the seven-time champion provided for so long. The opportunity to establish themselves as his successor induced many outbreaks of injudiciousness and over-ambition, and none of the current crop has yet learnt how to focus the efforts of a team in the way Schumacher did.

Felipe Massa, who ran Hamilton so close, began the season by spinning out of the Australian and Malaysian GPs. At that stage the Italian press was virtually unanimous in calling on the Ferrari management to replace him. But Massa would end the season with six victories, one more than Hamilton. “Not bad for a wanker, eh?” he said to a friend after setting the time that gave him pole position in the Brazilian GP. After that terrible start he had thoroughly outshone his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, the defending world champion, whose own errors restricted him to a pair of wins.

Hamilton began the season as though all the lessons of his debut campaign had been learnt, the good and bad experiences absorbed. In Melbourne, where both Ferraris went out with engine problems, he controlled the race brilliantly, unflustered by three safety-car periods. The next two races, however, were severely disappointing. Fifth in Malaysia was followed by 13th in Bahrain, where he clumsily ran into the back of Fernando Alonso’s Renault on the second lap. This was by some distance his worst display since arriving in Formula One, and questions were being asked. Even worse, the Ferraris had regained their mechanical reliability.

Three consecutive podium appearances for the McLaren team leader temporarily silenced the sceptics. Third behind the Ferraris in Barcelona and second behind Massa in Istanbul, Hamilton swept to victory in Monaco. On streets made treacherous by rain, all the zest and concentration appeared to have returned to his driving. He also made the most of a piece of luck when a brush with a barrier in the opening stages prompted an early pit stop to change a damaged rear wheel, which turned out to give him an unexpected strategic advantage. He became the first British driver to claim victory in the principality since Stewart in 1969.

To receive the trophy on a track where his idol, Ayrton Senna, had won six times provoked an emotional response. “This was the race I wanted to win more than any other in the world,” he said. “When I was a kid I looked at the tunnel, the swimming pool, it just looked spectacular so automatically it became my favourite race.”

In Montreal he blotted his copybook by driving into the back of the stationary Raikkonen while the Ferrari driver was waiting for the light to go green at the end of the pit lane. A 10-place grid penalty at the next race, in France, was compounded by a drive-through penalty for cutting a chicane, relegating him to 10th.

Once again, however, he came back fighting. At Silverstone he silenced a crescendo of criticism and overcame intermittent showers to win a Grand Prix in front of his home supporters for the first time. Starting from a disappointing fourth place on the grid, he unfurled an almost flawless drive which eventually gave him a margin of more than a minute over his nearest pursuer.

“By far the best victory I’ve had,” he said, explaining that at times he had needed to keeping flipping up his visor in order to clear the fogging that was obscuring his vision. And as the first half of the season came to an end, Hamilton and the two Ferrari drivers had 48 points apiece.

The momentum was maintained in Germany, where he overcame the team’s strategic error during a safety-car period to beat Massa to the flag. A puncture in Hungary dropped him to fifth and neck spasms at the dull new Valencia track prevented him from challenging Massa for first place, but a rousing win in difficult conditions at Spa was controversially converted into a third place when the stewards docked him 25 seconds for cutting a chicane late in the race, even though he had complied with the law by immediately handing back the place he had taken from Raikkonen.

A poor choice of tyres during the wet qualifying session at Monza left him in 15th place on the grid, and a charge up to second place was spoiled by a late stop that dropped him to seventh. In Singapore an awful race under the floodlights for Ferrari — Massa setting off from the pits with the fuel hose still attached, Raikkonen hitting the wall — allowed Hamilton to pick up the points for a circumspect third place.

The races in Japan and China, a week apart, summed up his inconsistency. At Fuji, in mayhem that recalled the heyday of the feuding Senna and Alain Prost, he overcompensated for a poor start, lost places and was hit by Massa on the second lap. Given a drive-through penalty for the incident at the first corner, he could finish only 12th. Seven days later, however, he dominated the field in Shanghai, taking pole position, the race win and the fastest lap. “All weekend we had God on our side,” he said after his lead had widened once again to that fateful seven points.

The year after Mike Hawthorn’s triumph, Jack Brabham got out of the cockpit and pushed his stricken Cooper the last half-mile to win the title at Sebring. Had that been asked of Lewis Hamilton in Brazil, he would almost certainly have been equal to the challenge.