The Weekly Wrap

Hamtastic! - November 10, 2008

Hamilton Becomes Champion In Last Corner

I’ve never seen a pass at the final corner for the world championship. Have you? Didn’t think so. Well, roughly a week ago, we all did, and it was amazing and exhilarating and half of Britain must have soiled themselves almost simultaneously. I’m not joking – I’m from Finland and I nearly had to excuse myself from the crowd around the big screen to go change my pants and burn the evidence.

Granted the pass wasn’t between those involved in the championship and the passee (a word I just invented) was sliding around on dry tyres whilst half the sky was coming down. Even if it looked like just a drizzle on TV, apparently the rain was quite strong in reality. As a result, Timo Glock might just as well have slid right into Lewis Hamilton, taking away the championship from him at the last minute (literally). But he didn’t, and nobody in reality soiled him or herself, and the British can now cheer for their new hero.

You’ll never guess who my new hero is. I’ll give you a few hints: it wasn’t Lewis Hamilton for becoming the youngest world champion ever in Formula 1. It wasn’t Felipe Massa, who came so staggeringly close to becoming the first Brazilian to win the world championship since Ayrton Senna that his family was already celebrating in the pits before being battered to the ground (not literally).

I admit those weren’t hints, just deductions from the pool of potential F1 heroes. Getting to the point, my new hero is, by a super-long mile, Sebastian Vettel. I absolutely adore him for the sheer size of his testicles (again, not literally). I simply can’t imagine the amount of self-esteem and sheer confidence he seems to have in himself, considering he had the guts to overtake Lewis Hamilton whilst knowing fully that it would cost his competitor the championship. The whole move sported such an amount of ”up yours, I’m faster” gusto that I find it difficult to
understand why so many seem to be boiling about him trying to come between Lewis and the championship. Lewis won nonetheless, didn’t he? Vettel rocks.

But I do feel sorry for Massa. What turned into the miracle gift of a lifetime for Hamilton is pretty much the exact opposite on Felipe’s end. Seriously, watching the video footage of his family celebrating in the pits before being told of Hamilton and Glock is probably one of the cruellest pieces of video that exists. To be so close after an entire season of hard racing, only to lose at the last second, is simply too hard to imagine. Even the most awfully wonderful horror novelists couldn’t script that. I’d have to compare it to a woman being told in the delivery
room that she’d have to do another nine months.

I’m not going to enter the debate about whether Lewis or Felipe deserved it more than the other, since it is a trivial debate in my view. Like pretty much everyone in the business has already said, the driver with the most points at the end of the season is the winner, and deserving it or not just doesn’t come into play. It’s a harsh reality, but there’s no trophy for “deserving it.” To be honest, I can’t understand why still, a week later, some seem to still have the energy to talk about this.

If there is any aspect in “talking about it” that makes sense, then it comes from Kimi Räikkönen. If anyone still has any doubts over whether or not the Ferrari drivers enjoy each other’s company, then I think the press conference after the Grand Prix should have shown you the light. I know I’m not the only one to have seen the slight shimmer of joy in Kimi’s eye when he told the press that the “driver with the most points has deserved victory.” It was more than obvious to notice that he was pleased to be able to remain the only world champion at Ferrari, proving how cold the relations are in the Ferrari garage.

Maybe after next year the situation won’t be the same. Maybe Massa will finally have luck on his side, since he already has talent and perseverance pushed right up against him. Having said this, I feel there will be quite a few more contenders for the championship next year, seeing as both BMW and Renault have put together quite a fight in more than a few races this year. Let’s see.

Hamilton is a truly deserving world champion, and it doesn’t take a crystal ball to know that he’ll probably repeat this feat more than once or twice during the rest of his career. Let’s just remind ourselves that he’s still 23. 23! If he races to be as old as the Schumacher’s and Coulthard’s before him, then he still has another fifteen seasons in him. Who’s willing to wager that he’ll beat Schumi’s records?

Oh, I seem to have mentioned David Coulthard. Nice career DC – quite a shame your last race had to end in retirement (literally, in two senses).

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