Lewis Hamilton finished with the seventh Formula 1 World Champion title, Michael Schumacher. The dispute over which of them is the “best F1 driver of all time” flared up again. Let’s try to find the answer by comparing the careers of both superchampions.
Hamilton won the seventh crown of the Formula 1 champion in Istanbul on Sunday. He managed to do the unthinkable until recently: to catch up with Schumi’s unprecedented collection of titles. That is exactly what Schumacher did before him in relation to Juan Manuel Fangio’s five winning seasons.
Given that Hamilton has previously collected more victories and qualifications than the German legend, British experts, led by ex-champion F1 Damon Hill, are clear: their compatriot is historically the best and that’s it.
But number theory is dry and green is the tree of life. They are two different stories of two diametrically opposed individuals. While Schumacher became a factory driver for Mercedes (in sports prototype races) at the age of 21 and then made his F1 debut behind the wheel of the Jordan, Hamilton has been a caregiver in a greenhouse called McLaren since the age of thirteen. It would be hard to find a more direct path to the world of Grand Prix.
Good luck to the talented
They were both lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Schumacher finished with Benetton for two titles, after which he heard Jean Todt’s call and went to Ferrari. There, along with the French manager and Ross Brawn as a brilliant technician and strategist, Schumi was part of the “holy trinity”, thanks to which the red cars from Maranello rolled Formula 1 at the beginning of the millennium.
After four not quite perfect seasons in McLaren, Hamilton succumbed to the lure of Niki Lauda and headed for Mercedes. Since the arrival of the hybrids in 2013, he has dominated the world of Grand Prix even more than Scuderia could have done before him.
The team won seven Constructors’ Cups, and only exploding soot in the fratricidal war with Nik Rosberg in the 2016 season meant that Hamilton did not celebrate a record eighth title in Istanbul.
Max Verstappen’s accusation that 90% of drivers would win the title with a formula like Mercedes’s today is a bit unfair. Sure, Silver Arrows have the entire hybrid age technique up a class.
But even with such a crockery, the average pilot would never have achieved such a balance as a 35-year-old native from Stevenage. Just because he couldn’t do so well for so long. Not to mention the ability to concentrate on a fast bike in qualifying and great work with tires.
The black hawk from Jerez
Schumacher was never a philanthropist on the track and sometimes went for success at all costs. After all, he was subsequently excluded from the 1997 season. Reason? In a futile attempt to stop Jacques Villeneuv’s journey to the title in Jerez, he deliberately crashed into Canadian Williams.
Similar examples of behavior, which did not appeal to rivals or the race directorate, the German driver collected countless times during his career. But despite his hard driving style, the German never became a symbol of the “fool behind the wheel”, as in front of him the “breaker” Andrea de Cesaris and subsequently, for example, such Pastor Maldonado. Seven titles simply cannot be combined with such a sticker.
Apart from the conflicts with Rosberg, Hamilton has an almost clean criminal record in this respect. He committed the controversy rather off the track. Here in Australia he burned tires, other times in France he ran down the highway with almost two hundred. In contrast, the exemplary father of the Schumacher family lived an absolutely boring private life.
Justice at all costs?
But there is a sentence after the wild Hamilton. He sold his private jet last year and this year he became one of the loudest supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement. There would be nothing wrong with that if he did not take on the role of a preacher so much that he began to rebuke his opponents.
Not everyone from the twenty-member race field is willing to kneel down as a gesture in support of BLM. Kimi Räikkönen, one of the six who remains standing before the Grand Prix, objected that everyone has the right to do things according to their conscience. And most importantly, not even kneeling is against the fight against racism.
The quirky Fin hit the nail on the head. Hamilton began to consider his personal view of the issue of racial unity as the only correct one. In addition, with his constant mentoring, he seems to have thrown into the trash the entire Formula 1 movement against any inequality under the heading “We race as one”.
So far, it looks more like everyone should “race like Hamilton”. It never occurred to Schumacher to make Formula 1 a politician or even to force his opinion on rivals.
And that’s maybe what separates a great champion from a legend.
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