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POSTSPORT
The Daily Post
Monday, March 10, 2008
Motorsport: The world’s richest sport gets under way in Aussie this week, and much is expected of one young British driver in particular
Young man in a hurry
Abusers ’not fans’: F1 boss F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone has described abuse of Lewis Hamilton in Spain as an ‘‘isolated incident’’ and said the sport did not need an antiracism campaign. ‘‘It gives attention to the people that want attention. I don’t think they are fans and I don’t think they were supporting [Fernando] Alonso in particular. They just like to abuse people,’’ Ecclestone, 77, said of the spectators who taunted Hamilton at a recent testing session in Barcelona. ‘‘Lewis is strong enough to know it’s all nonsense.’’
Singapore nights Singapore will stage F1’s first ever night race on a street circuit around the Marina Bay district, on September 28, subject to final safety approval. Set against the backdrop of downtown Singapore, drivers and spectators will get a glimpse of the exotic garden city as the circuit winds past City Hall and the iconic Esplanade. A new 1.2km road to form the eastern section of the circuit will also be built, alongside the pits. F1 cars do not have lights so the circuit would have to be brilliantly lit.
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WELVE months ago, Lewis Hamilton was the innocent rookie, teamed up with the reigning world champion. It’s the stuff of Formula One legend now that Hamilton stood all natural assumptions on their head. Headlines followed the 23-yearold Brit, like exhaust from his tailpipe as he finished on the podium in his first Grand Prix, became the youngest since Bruce McLaren to lead the world championship — and only lost his grip on the title to Kimi Raikkonen in the final race of his debut season. It got to the point that when Michael Schumacher tipped Hamilton for future glory, few were impressed by the comment — they could see it all for themselves. A year on from his brilliant third place in Melbourne, Hamilton looks to be in pole position at McLaren, the team that took him under its wing when he was only 13. Relaxed, and radiating self confidence, he has proven he can cut it at the top. But now comes the battle to make sure he stays there. You couldn’t make up the year he had. Nor his sparkling career to date. Hamilton set himself on a path to F1 when he introduced himself to McLaren boss Ron Dennis at the 1994 Autosport Awards. The nine year-old from rural Tewin, Hertfordshire, walked up to Dennis, asked for his autograph and then said: ‘‘Hi. I’m Lewis Hamilton. I won the British Karting Championship and one day I want to be racing your cars.’’ Dennis, to his credit and no doubt great pride now, took Hamilton under his wing,
Duty-free BMW, sir?
REFLECTIONS: Lewis Hamilton faces even more speed bumps in his second year in F1 after blazing an historic trail in 2007. inducting him at 13 on a McLarensponsored young drivers’ programme. Years later, merely battling for one of sport’s biggest prizes would have been enough for most. But, in 2007, there were tears and tantrums — not just from Fernando Alonso , the twice world champion he joined as supposed McLaren team ‘‘subordinate’’. He finished second in the world championship, missing out on the title by just two points; the most successful rookie season in F1 history. He had podium finishes in his first nine races and won in Canada, the US, Hungary and Japan. The tail-end of his whirlwind campaign was overshadowed by a gearbox failure in Brazil that saw the title snatched from him by Raikkonen. The there was ‘Spygate’ — when McLaren was severely rollocked for stealing Ferrari’s technical innovations. While in January, he became a tax exile — moving to Monte Carlo after signing a new fiveyear multi-million pound
contract to stay with McLarenMercedes until at least the end of the 2012 season — for Hamilton, 2008 quickly had some of the gloss taken off it. Testing in Barcelona, he was racially abused by spectators at the Circuit de Catalunya, where he is unpopular because of his rivalry with Spanish ex-team-mate Alonso, who has now returned to Renault. An FIA warning to the Spanish racing authorities may, ironically, only inflame matters for Hamilton when he returns to race there. England’s black footballers could have warned him what to
expect when competing in Spain, having experienced horrendous racial abuse there in the past. Australian Mark Webber, who drives for Red Bull, said he doubted Hamilton would win the Spanish locals over any time soon and said: ‘‘We have two races in Spain — one in Barcelona and one in Valencia. ‘‘They will be extremely well attended and the fans won’t like Lewis and probably won’t for a long time — but that’s the way they are. They didn’t like Michael Schumacher much, either.’’ Hamilton is phlegmatic, though. And driven. Not to mention incredibly focused. With the newly-launched MP4-23 at his disposal, Hamilton sees FEELING CHAMPION: Kimi Raikkonen pipped Hamilton to the title in the last race, in Brazil.
no reason why he won’t again be fighting to wrest Raikkonen’s drivers’ title come the end of the new championship, which begins in Melbourne on March 15. And he has new team-mate, Heikki Kovalainen. Hamilton says he has already warmed to the Finn. ‘‘Fernando [Alonso] kept more to himself, while Heikki is quite similar to me, as I like to talk a lot and he is also quite bubbly. There is already something of a friendship developing between us,’’ he told F1.com. And he stresses that unlike last season, when his astonishing quick-fire successes usurped his more senior team-mate Alonso, which, perhaps not surprisingly, piqued the Spaniard, Hamilton says both he and Kovalainen will have equal treatment in the McLaren team. He says: ‘‘We are out there to beat each other, compete with each other, but also to bring the team forward. ‘‘With Heikki, I can clearly see that he wants to beat me and I want to beat him — but all in a
PICTURES: REUTERS
fair manner. He is as much a racer as I am. Heikki and me, we both have that fresh blood and the determination to go somewhere.’’ McLaren are seen by some experts to have been handicapped by agreeing to suspend development of some new systems on the car following the Ferrari spy scandal. But Hamilton, who escaped punishment personally, is adamant: ‘‘The team has gone through a hell of a lot but they still have the same determination and drive to win the world championship — and if we win it’s even better.’’ So who does this Brit with grit see as his biggest rivals when the season revs up? The same suspects as last season — plus Kovalainen. Does that mean he learned from his own exploits last season that the closest rivalry can often come from within the same team? He glosses over that one, saying: ‘‘We have proved our competitiveness as a team so I don’t see any reason why it should change this year.’’
Passengers passing through Zurich airport can add an F1 car to their usual duty-free shopping. A selection of cars and memorabilia owned by Peter Sauber, whose Swiss-based team were taken over by BMW in 2005, are being auctioned off at the airport. The cars on offer include ones raced by France’s Jean Alesi between 1998 and 1999 and Ferrari’s world champion Kimi Raikkonen, who started his career with Sauber.
Spying warning Any F1 team found guilty of spying in future can expect to be kicked out of the championship, FIA President Max Mosley (pictured) has warned. McLaren were fined $US100 million and stripped of all their 2007 constructors’ points for a controversy involving Ferrari information. But despite the team’s punishment, Spain’s double world champion Fernando Alonso and his British rookie team mate Lewis Hamilton were allowed to remain in the fight for the drivers’ title. ‘‘You can never stop what someone has got in his head, but we can stop the transfer of information in written or electronic form,’’ Mosley said. ‘‘"Next time, whoever it was, I don’t think they would stay in the championship.’’
Graphic: Terence Tsang