Hamilton’s Formula

A jarring contrast of fortunes for the McLaren-men in Canada was lit up by the flash of lathe sparks and a cutting two second put-down: ‘What was he doing?’

In F1 you do not collide with a teammate. You do not go off on a straight – particularly one so long, so North American that it must stretch from view in a single, dignified line, evoking the spirit of railroad tycoons, gold fever and migrating bison. And yet thundering into this yawning expanse, Hamilton found himself squeezed into a walled corridor, like a desperate youth forcing an imported ’77 Mustang into a cluttered Chelmsford garage.

Hamilton was left drunkenly kicking at his puncture, and it would not have been surprising if his condition had escalated suddenly to induce the whipping of an imaginary Austin Estate with a branch of Hawthorn. After all, Niki Lauda has diagnosed Hamilton as ‘Completely Mad’, and we musn’t forget, this is coming from someone who was, himself, mis-diagnosed death on the racetrack and read his last rites by a hastily-summoned clergyman.

The final lap insult for Hamilton came as Button scythed through the field to take the chequered flag and with it, blot out any blame for the collision. McLaren put on a united front of celebration alongside the spectacularly-named BBC pit-part-man, Ted Kravitz, who captured Hamilton stating the seemingly obvious:

“If you don’t win, you always want your teammate to win.”

But this is a sport that exposes the word ‘team’ to such rigorous mechanical pressures that it stretches, turns back to front, loses letters  and transmogrifies to the word ‘me’. Hamilton’s expression betrayed his true feelings which may have read something like: ‘Button winning after the race I’ve had? It’s akin to your brother having an affair with your wife and paying for an abortion with a bicycle-basket full of twenty pound notes.’ But Hamilton no longer makes such clumsy, car-crash remarks or post-race ‘frickin’ jokes’ a la Ali G, via Bernard Manning.

‘Mad’, ‘Dangerous’ and ‘Going to get someone killed’ are tag-lines that racing drivers can somehow survive, possibly thrive on. Talk of Senna’s ‘untamed’ talent, Villeneuve’s ‘rage to win’ may have egged on an inexperienced back-grid driver to pull donuts on the warm-up lap. However, pundits are using words such as ‘resigned’, ‘desperate’ and ‘crisis’, which are unglamorous attributes more at home in Morecambe than Monaco. Talk of crisis always comes too early in sport punditry, so early in fact, that talk of 'talk of a crisis' may even jump the gun. And what kind of a crisis would Hamilton be experiencing? An identity crisis? Possibly. A racing driver mid-life crisis where models and fast cars have no bearing whatsoever? At 26? Again, possibly, but no: if he was a gambler, he’d be cold; if he was an insurance policy, he’d be unquotable. His assessment of the Canadian Grand Prix beforehand was less Nostradamus, more Michael Fish ’87:

“The city is one of my favourite cities in the world. The weather, generally, has been fantastic every time we've been here.”

He is so spiritually and psychically under-the-weather that one wonders if the recent rumours of joining Red Bull will be scuppered by a brash announcement: ‘I have decided to join a Lotus team that harkens back to days when men were men and sideburns were sideburns’.

Such static lulls in nature’s forcefields are only momentary. He has offended the Gods somehow. Or at least Maggie Smith’s Hera whilst Laurence Olivier's Zeus is out taking a dump. A prodigy cannot go on being denied in such a manner. Especially one with such an iconic dad, visuals-over-sonics partner and A-list entourage. Indeed, competitors may even be fazed by the sheer expensiveness of his sunglasses. But there was a sign the tides are turning, the times are a-changing, for the wheel still it spins. And the loser now will be later to win - Hamilton’s Formula:

“Why am I so quick here in Canada? Well, you have to be close to the walls, which I particularly like. But not too close.”