Slated for having celebrity friends, mocked for being ‘blessed’, derided for his fashion choices. By all means, have your opinions but make no mistake, Lewis Hamilton is a great British success story and you’ll miss him when he’s gone.
The 2019 Formula One World Championship is about to have its season closing race in Abu Dhabi but it has seen Lewis Hamilton win his sixth world championship title and he may yet equal or overtake the mystical seven achieved by Michael Schumacher.
As with many champions in sport, they have a habit of making the winning appear easy. For Lewis, it has made him an easy target; he has the car and the resources of Mercedes AMG, but it wasn’t that long ago the F1 was branded boring because Schumacher always won with Ferrari.
But the poor support from the British press and the plethora of keyboard warriors on social media seem to miss one fundamental element to Lewis, namely that he is one of the best drivers ever to grace the Formula One stage. Luck will always play a role in any success, but to have made a switch to Mercedes from the seemingly top-of-their-game McLaren, was questioned by may ‘learned experts’ at the time, yet here we now have a mature Lewis still giggling like a kid in a kart all those years ago.
He wears his heart on his sleeve and that, to some at least, is seen as a weakness, yet he has ditched the jet and is using his vaulted position to promote planet health. A noble effort given how people mock him for that too.
Reports from the paddock have him no longer being fun for photographers or being too obsessed with things outside F1, but it is challenging to be nice or ‘always on’ when at work. But when the visor drops and Lewis is in the zone, he is so compelling to watch.
He clearly loves what he does and who should we be to knock someone from Britain that shows what can be achieved no matter how long those odds may seem against it happening. There are certainly many worse people in the celebrity world that make for a lesser role model for the next generation.
