F1 is complex. And it’s said with justification that its current spec is very complex. But even with this the explanations to unravel its big questions are often in fact highly simple.
And Lewis Hamilton’s latest world championship just won, his third in total, was at its broadest level easy to explain. Mercedes was miles ahead just as it was in 2014 when it aced the new formula and then some. Even at the best of times making that up in one close season was never going to be likely. It’s even less so in an age when engine development is restricted by regulation.
Only Ferrari’s 2015 effort to knock the Merc off its perch can be classified under ‘nice try’, indeed following its early-season Malaysia triumph it looked briefly that it might have enough to do just that. But Malaysia it transpired was a one-off. Then the FIA technical directive on fuel flow issued in the Barcelona weekend gave the Mercs additional breathing space.
That meant that just like 2014’s the 2015 chase of the drivers’ championship was a strictly intra-Merc affair. Last year, perhaps against expectation, there was a tight battle between Lewis and his team mate Nico Rosberg. Indeed for much of the year Nico led. This was down to a few things, not least that intangible thing called luck. In the first two-thirds or so of that campaign Lewis had the lion’s share of mechanical failures in qualifying or the race compromising his result – at one point Lewis suffered four to Nico’s one (though it can credibly be pointed out that Rosberg had the same problem as Hamilton in Canada but managed it better, so perhaps it should have been four-two). We can add Spa where Lewis was in effect taken out by Nico. Maybe further add Monaco… Lewis for his part perhaps trying too hard to claw things back added a few mistakes of his own, particularly in qualifying in the mid-part of the year.
And to bring us back to our simple explanation – 2015 was 2014 without those. Lewis’s title triumph therefore was, to use the modern parlance, a ‘no brainer’.
Even at the height of their 2014 battle the Merc non-executive chairman Niki Lauda said in public that “Lewis from my point of view has a 0.1-0.2secs advantage on Nico”. According to Mark Hughes indeed when Lewis is ‘only’ a tenth quicker than Nico in a practice session he’ll be found with his engineer trying to work out where it’s ‘going wrong’, the unspoken assumption being that in his mind at least all being equal he should be further ahead. Not that we should reproach him for this. The unspoken assumption throughout the paddock is that Lewis is the fastest out there and has been since he arrived in F1. We can of course argue about the best but fastest has long been beyond most doubt. And that’s before we add the other ways in which Lewis is reckoned to have the edge over his team-mate – racecraft; ability in combat; improvisation…
For Lewis in a way it comes easy too. When asked a few weeks ago what the ‘secrets’ were of his speed, Lewis in that way of his saying it like it was self-evident rather than bombastic replied: “I can only really put my speed down to the natural way I drive…I put it down to talent”. He went on: “Driving? No problem…I don’t need to see someone else’s lap to be quick”. Nico meanwhile has never made a secret of his studying Lewis’s traces.
And being the analytical sort, as well as being someone who has had more reason than most to be aware of Lewis’s raw pace, Nico across the garage presumably has long since surmised that he has to put other things to his use to beat him and therefore take the crown for himself. For 2014 it appears to have been pressure. Partly that Lewis has been known to have an emotional streak that can get the better of him. But that year there was something bigger going on.
We should not kid ourselves, in 2014 Lewis was the one with something to lose. For him the title at Mercedes when the new regulations came in was what was meant to be. That’s why he defied the advice and expectations of just about everyone to join from McLaren. If he went through all that and then missed out to the guy expected to be his wing man? Well, you can imagine the reaction from the rest of us, and that the bottom had fallen out of the Woking effort in between times would only have been minor consolation. Little wonder he – as Lauda apparently pointed out to him mid-last season – gave the outward impression of rather tightening up; of not allowing his pace to come to the fore. Nico meanwhile and by contrast could proceed on the basis that everything he did would be a surprise.
As Andrew Benson outlined towards the end of that campaign, though before Lewis had wrapped things up: “His [Nico’s] modus operandi was clear – don’t overreach, keep it simple, play it safe. The logic was clear. He had the best car, so Hamilton was his only opposition for the title. So long as he did a solid job, the worst place he could expect to qualify was second on the grid. No need for heroics, then. Just work calmly and diligently. Analyse the data – especially Hamilton’s. Look for an advantage. Be as close as you can. Be consistent. Always just be there. That in itself would put pressure on Hamilton, and pressure brings mistakes. When they came, Rosberg would be on pole – and, from there, he’d have a good chance of victory. Being outqualified would put more pressure on Hamilton, and so on and so on.”
And for two-thirds or so of that season Nico played that game beautifully. Indeed I recall witnessing Rosberg in close quarters in Hockenheim that summer as another dose of foul fortune for his team-mate in qualifying gave Nico another pole and win on a plate, further extending his championship lead which he’d had pretty much the whole time. Simply adding to it he’d won at home, had signed a Merc contract extension days before as well as had just got married. And the sense around the place, shared by Nico apparently who positively beamed, was that there was something in the air. That somehow 2014 was Nico’s time in the sun.
As it was though he didn’t win again for near enough four months. As is always the case, the fruit is at its sweetest at the precise point that the rot begins.
Perhaps with Nico’s modus operandi of letting Hamilton be the one to receive the pressure it said something that Nico’s challenge faltered in the late rounds – as all of a sudden Nico had something to lose. As Benson further noted: “After Monza, he had a 22-point lead with six races to go. Not huge, especially in the context of a double points finale, but substantial. From there, he shouldn’t lose. But he could. Quite easily. Especially if Hamilton gets on another roll…”
And that’s exactly how it played out. Lewis suddenly when in a corner came out swinging from Monza onwards, and in Singapore he got at least some of his luck back with a 25-point swing. The momentum, and his talent, did the rest.
Perhaps it’s instructive too that it wasn’t until the penultimate round, that in Brazil, when the championship was almost gone that Nico suddenly appeared back to the sort of form that helped him establish his big lead in the first place. But by then it was too late. Perhaps, against common assumption, it had little to do with the after effects of Spa and all that, wherein Nico was booed by the public, thrown under the bus by his team-mate (“We just had a meeting about it and he basically said he did it on purpose”) and treated outwardly by his bosses rather like a schoolboy in disgrace.
After that infamous clash it was said by Merc boss Toto Wolff that Rosberg felt “he needed to make a point”. In other words – with some echoes of Alain Prost in Suzuka 1989 – he was fed up being the one to cede in battle with his team mate, and wanted to lay down a marker. Quite why he felt this way wasn’t clear, though in the famous Bahrain race Rosberg wasn’t happy with some of Hamilton’s moves in their near race-long battle, and indeed having been cut up rather by him on one occasion shouted to his engineer on his radio “warn him that was not on!” More recently he wasn’t happy either that Lewis had defied a team order to let him by in Hungary. Then just before the infamous Spa clash Nico shrieked again on his radio alleging that Lewis had exceeded track limits at Eau Rouge, which again may give some indication of his state of mind heading into the Les Combes incident.
Yet then as now I do not begin to understand why Nico was worrying about this. It seems he forgot in that moment what it was that had got him into such a strong position in the first place. “Don’t overreach, keep it simple, play it safe”. Instead he wilfully placed himself into the role of his opponent by being the one who felt obliged to take risks; to demonstrate that he was quicker and racier all ends up. It turned out to be a misjudgement with a long shadow. One that arguably he has yet to emerge fully.
Maybe the ego took control. After all for any racing driver to accept that he does not have the raw speed of another cannot be easy (considering the pair did their motor racing development alongside each other and you have an extra layer of psychological fun). According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs we pursue more abstract goals like esteem, respect and self-realisation once the more material things are in place. And as Benson further pointed out even with everything apparently going his way earlier in the year there was a conspicuous sign of weakness in his infamous trip down the Mirabeau escape road in Monaco’s qualifying that one way or another was in response to Hamilton’s threat. “Whether or not deliberate” said Benson, “it betrays a fallibility”.
Further lengthening the shadow of this on Nico is that there are plenty of reasons to think that he’ll never get another opportunity at the title like that again. Not in a direct fight with Hamilton anyway. And those reasons were conspicuous even without seeing a single 2015 race result. One is that Lewis would work on his game, and he had a strange outlying conspicuous area to improve from 2014 – something he’d always excelled at indeed – in qualifying where he regularly was beaten by Nico.
This point allows us to dash one of the enduring myths that exists about Lewis, that he’s instinctively fast but brainless. The first bit is true, the next bit not. Ask those who’ve worked with him closely such as Merc’s technical head Paddy Lowe or engine boss Andy Cowell and they will in contrast to the commonly-constructed persona describe him as one to immerse himself in the detail, and possessed of an extraordinary ability to get his head around things. A man restless; always looking to improve. And with a Nigel Mansell-like urge to forever demonstrate what he can do. Remember too we used to say he’d never be able to adapt to gumball Pirellis. Then that he’d never adapt to the ‘efficiency’ formula. He did and then some in both cases. Will Buxton has confirmed he had this deep and varied skillset in his pre-F1 days too. Buxton theorised indeed that Lewis may even have consciously cultivated the fast-but-dopey image in order for his opponents to underestimate him.
Sure enough Lewis focussed especially on qualifying for this campaign. “It’s never-ending” he said recently. “You’re constantly developing your driving…you have to keep working at it, working on your fitness and your weak points. Look at last year – I’ve been racing for a long time but my qualifying was weak…This year, it has been a little tweak in qualifying, a small tweak, but it’s worked”.
And the proof of the pudding, Lewis took 11 poles in the first 12 rounds this year.
“I spent a lot of time analysing my [2014] year,” he went on, “and areas I want to improve this year, and I set out some goals to go from the beginning of training – I set up goals to arrive at the start of the season having achieved them”.
But there’s a bigger matter too. Related to the pressure matter already discussed. Lewis has benefitted this year from the assurance of having the title in his pocket. And he knows it. “Naturally from winning the world championship, just released a lot of tension” he said in recent weeks. “This year, I have just been able to enjoy driving. If anything, it has made it better. Somehow, I don’t feel that intensity when it comes to the race weekend. I don’t feel any pressure. I know more than ever what I’m capable of”.
And it gets bigger still. Not for nothing Lewis spoke in 2014 of it feeling like it was his first title he was chasing rather than his second. It would be the first that Lewis did in effect by himself rather than rather painstakingly navigated by others, particularly his father. The first since he struck out on his own as it were. “This championship was much better [than 2008]” he said not long after the 2014 title was won, “because I’ve been in a much happier place. When I was younger…I wasn’t really my own man. My dad was a big driving force. Now I stand on my own two feet, pay my own bills, look after myself and make choices on my own, in terms of how I prepare and approach things and the sacrifices I make. Do’s and don’ts are what got me to win that championship. And that’s something to be really proud of”.
And he did it as the real Lewis rather than the rather constrained one (off the track at least) witnessed in the early days, and of course his new-found approach was not one that everyone accepted readily. This time the title felt like all his. And a grand personal vindication.
As for Nico, the avenue he sought to proceed down in 2014, and very nearly managed it, is now closed off for the reasons given. Perhaps Lewis realises this too. Certainly a few suspect that now he all of a sudden is being terribly complimentary about his team-mate in public demonstrates that he feels he’s now got him where he wants him. That he sees no potential backfiring from giving him a psychological boost. That it has a whiff of damning with faint praise too – he’s “a real team player” – tells us something also.
Nico has to find something new. He seems to know it too, as demonstrated in Mexico when he said “I have to rethink some things” about his battle with Lewis. But what? And in recent months Mark Webber added a perhaps unwelcome thought. Reflecting on his own F1 career he said, in contrast to the multiple champions, that a driver of his own level gets one chance at the championship. He said he had his in 2010 and missed it. Will Nico when the time comes reflect on his own F1 career in the same way?
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