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After 15 seasons and seven titles, of remaining one lap away from burying the record in capital letters of Formula 1 – those seven Michael Schumacher championships that seemed unapproachable – of becoming untouchable because no one was in a position to approach him until Max Verstappen arrived, and having solved the lives of his great-great-grandsons with stark salaries that have turned him into an industry with legs, Lewis Hamilton you can retire to your rooms.
It is not a sentence made to close a paragraph. Each season finale is speculated with his goodbye, one month after his 37th birthday. Last winter the pilot already introduced a variable on the game board when he hinted on a couple of occasions that he could close his journey in the Formula 1 without at least trying to outmaneuver Schumacher.
And it fueled speculation when he delayed signing his renewal for Mercedes until almost the beginning of the just-concluded season. “I feel like ending everything completely,” he commented in one of his thousands of sentences that have generated debate, controversy or the like, because he will not have anything else, but he does not leave indifferent.
From rookie to super champion
Hamilton has already walked all the trails in Formula 1. He was originally a defiant rookie of a world champion (Fernando Alonso, in that volcanic McLaren from 2007) that left scorched earth in its wake due to a misguided relationship by Ron Dennis, the old boss. Hamilton was the winner of that duel if we stick to the results; the following year, 2008, in his second season as an F1 passenger, he won the title in a stroke of fortune in the last corner of the last race with Felipe Massa already at the finish line believing himself the winner. “I’m just afraid I’m not as big as possible,” he considered that day, his first afternoon as world champion.
Plugged like Alonso in Ferrari by the supersonic Red Bull Designed by Newey for Vettel in the 2010-2012 cycle, the Briton chose a new path to build his career. He signed for an automotive giant who was in his infancy in Formula 1, Mercedes. He replaced at the wheel the legend with whom he is tied, Michael Schumacher, who was half invisible in his return to F1 at the hands of Ross Brawn.
“I am willing to accept whatever amount of suffering is to win,” he stated in the year empty of content (2013), of pure sowing, in which Mercedes squeezed her previous work with Schumacher and Rosberg.
In 2014 the Mercedes engine and the English driver started like a flash in the hybrid era, insurmountable until this Sunday reaching unsuspected marks: 81 victories, more than 40 percent of the chances of success in each season. That is to say, Hamilton he has won nearly one out of every two races that have been held in F1 since then. “I feel like people expect me to fail, so I hope to win,” he declared defiantly when there was no alternative in F1 than his leadership.
He was only interrupted in 2016 by his teammate Nico Rosberg, who won and retired, perhaps not to lose again in comparisons with Hamilton. That campaign was speculated with love sickness as an argument for the defeat of the British after his break with the singer of the Pussycat Dolls, Nicole Scherzinger.
Never more. Hamilton had won all the championships since then, until the fateful last lap in Abu Dhabi before passing through the safety car and Latifi’s accident. Four consecutive World Cups without more opposition than the resistance of Max Verstappen in this course. In the Dutchman he has discovered an enemy at his height, as voracious on the track as he is nonconformist off it. That overtaking with the red wheels is for history, an unmitigated defeat of the F1 fetish.
«He always speaks on the court, my father told me from day one. And that’s what I’ve done, “he confesses in reference to Anthony, his father, an immigrant from the Caribbean island of Grenada, a former London Underground worker who named his son Lewis because of his admiration for the athlete Carl Lewis.
Hamilton has transcended in Formula 1. His fight against racism, his defense of civil rights and his belief in a better world have transported him to a more global message, without reference to so many valves, engines or soft tires. “We are not born with racism and hatred in our hearts, that is taught to us by those we admire,” he said about the ‘Black lives matter’ movement.
Hamilton, the first black driver in the history of Formula 1, has fallen on the verge of being the greatest with eight championships. «I say to all the children: don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it. Dream of the impossible, “he said before suffering the bitter taste of second place on his skin.
Abu Dhabi could spell the end of an era for Hamilton and Mercedes. Drivers and teams look forward to 2022 as if it were mana. The regulation change, the freezing of engines, the lesser influence of aerodynamics and the limitation of budgets will theoretically equalize the performance of the cars. In theory and in the conditional. And without anyone knowing today where he is in progress and who will rule the grid next March.
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