The Fast Lane
Louis Hamilton has been on the Formula 1 circuit for five years and has only won the world championship once in 2008. Hamilton has always been sensationalized by the British media even though Sebastian Vettel has been world champion for the last three years. So what makes Hamilton so great? Statistically he has the ambition, youth and racing technique to be the best, especially if he has a fast reliable car. Since Michael Schumacher has retired as a Formula 1 racing driver, he has become the ambassador for Mercedes, the same team which Hamilton is currently racing for.
There are a lot of controversies whether Michael Schumacher was the greatest driver of all time based on the manner in which he was favoured over his teammates, namely Rubens Barrichello and Felipe Massa at Ferrari during 2000 till 2005. Michael Schumacher has been world champion in 1994, 1995, 2000 up till 2004.
Hamilton is a real go getter, a true racing driver that is always challenging technicalities to get the best performance out of his car. Hamilton fails to make the correct tyre choices based on the weather. Tyre choice is an important factor considering that most cars do not adapt easily to tyre changes. There are three different tyre types; soft, super soft and medium of which two of the tyre types has to be used on race day. Once he has proper management giving him the correct guidance to make the correct tyre choices for the permitted weather, he can then go much further.
Since Ross Brawn (Schumacher’s technical mechanic) is now the present technical principal of Mercedes, it can only work in Hamilton’s favour due to Brawn’s experience in his technical strategies, especially when it comes to making the appropriate tyre choices and suitable pitting times. With that being said, Paddy Lowe, Hamilton’s technical manager with whom Hamilton has a long term relationship, has also moved over with Hamilton to Mercedes.
Since McLaren-Mercedes finished 3rd on the point standing for 2012 it would be appropriate for the Work Mercedes team to at least better or equal that position as they finished in 5th position. Since both teams are using the identical Mercedes engines, if Mercedes can set their mechanical data accurately they should be able to outperform McLarens-Mercedes.
Hamilton has crashed the new Mercedes Formula 1 car in the early stages of pre season practice session in Barcelona; however he had also set the fastest lap time so far.
Hamilton has the same hunger and desire to win as Schumacher did. It will be very interesting to see his grid position in the Australian Grand Prix. Hamilton has many advantages to become the greatest Formula 1 racing driver due to the fact that he has Michael Schumacher, Ross Brawn and his own technical manager to advise him to make the right choices.
TheFastLane 