Formula One / Ralph Ellis / 28 October 2009 / Leave a comment
Ralph Ellis salutes the 2009 World Champion but makes the case that, in the long run, this will be regarded as the season when the 2008 Champion came of age...
"This has been the season that Lewis Hamilton has established himself as the modern day Michael Schumacher."
Long before Michael Schumacher was handed the keys to the Ferrari cars that won him five consecutive world titles, everybody in motor racing knew the German was the best driver in the sport. If it rained, if there was debris on the track, if the guys in the fastest cars made a mistake, then Schumacher would be forcing his way onto the podium.
Once he got behind the wheel of the best bit of engineering in Formula One, the combination of driver and car was irresistible. But if you'd put every driver in the same tin box, the German would still have been odds on favourite to win. He was simply the best.
Now I know Jenson Button is the 2009 World Champion, and fair play to him for finally pulling together enough points to get across the finishing line. Regular readers will know I kept laying him for the title at short odds and to be honest it was a gamble I'm happy to have lost. (The moment the market opens again for 2010 I'll be laying Button some more and confident that I'll get my money back). But in my view this has been the season that Lewis Hamilton has established himself as the modern day Michael Schumacher.
Forced to start the season in a McLaren car that was way behind the technical innovations of the Brawn team, he still forced every last second of speed from it. In the F1 equivalent of a sewing machine on wheels, he scored nine points in the early part of the campaign with arguably the best driving of the season. Once his car became remotely competitive he was up there winning, getting 40 points from the last seven races.
Hamilton will inevitably have that will to win spurring him on for the final race this weekend. It's why he's worth backing even at [3.4] favourite. And you know when he's talking to the Sun's Michael Spearman this morning about his hopes for Abu Dhabi it is more than idle words.
Hamilton is quoted: "A win would send us into the winter fully motivated for 2010. All the signs point to Abu Dhabi being another strong track for us, as there are plenty of slow corners leading on to long straights. I want the number one back on my car."
Hamilton has yet to know who will be sharing the McLaren garage next season. There's been talk of Button moving, but that looks less likely as the new world champion gets closer to agreeing a new pay deal at Brawn. The 2007 champion Kimi Raikkonen, who will race for Ferrari the last time this weekend, is a more likely stablemate if he can settle on how much of a cut on his current salary of 51 million dollars a year he's willing to take.
But whoever joins him you can rest assured of one thing. Hamilton will be up there fighting for the title again.
Five things you might not know about Kimi Raikkonen
1. Born in 1979 in Espoo, Finland, his dad was a road builder who ended up working nights as a taxi driver and nightclub bouncer to pay for the young Kimi's early Go-Karting career
2. He was made to leave school at 16 after getting in trouble for using his schoolbag as a snowboard. He took a job as a mechanic to get involved in racing
3. He was only 21, with just 23 car races behind him, when Sauber gave him his Grand Prix debut. He finished sixth in his first race
4. Known for a playboy lifestyle, he settled down to marry former Miss Scandanavia Jenni Dahlman in 2004. They live in Switzerland with two dogs and a collection of cars. Asked to name his most prized possession he said it was "my wife and my Ferrari Enzo"
5. Before his debut for Ferrari in his title winning season, he entered a snowmobile race under the name "James Hunt". He later gave the same name to enter a powerboat race which he drove while dressed in a gorilla suit.
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