Lewis Hamilton’s short career in Formula One has been simply astonishing. In the space of just two years he has amassed an impressive collection of victories and has become the youngest ever F1 World Champion. His rapid ascendancy to the top of Grand Prix racing is incomparable.
Well, almost.
Lewis Hamilton’s career to date has been exactly the same as Jacques Villeneuve’s. Both drivers started in Formula One with a leading team and made stunning debuts on the podium at Albert Park. Both missed out on the world title at the final race of their first season, and both humbled their more experienced teammates along the way.
After two years in the sport Hamilton has taken nine wins, just two less than Villeneuve, and when you consider that both drivers became World Champions at their second attempt they are close to being statistically identical.
You would expect Lewis to easily surpass Jacques’ achievements in the near future, but it is certainly not impossible for their careers to continue to overlapping.
After two remarkable seasons with Williams, Villeneuve struggled for most of the next decade in Formula One. He scored twice as many points in those first two years than he did throughout the remainder of his career. He never won another race again after his championship victory and salvaged just four podiums until he was dropped by BMW in 2006.
Villeneuve’s downfall started in 1998 when Williams was unable to get up to speed with the radical new regulations introduced by the FIA. Max Mosley oversaw a change in the technical philosophy of Formula One that brought about the introduction of narrow-track chassis and grooved tyres. The drastic changes meant that teams had to effectively design and build completely new cars. Patrick Head and his engineering team at Williams were slow to adapt and failed to take the full potential out of the new rules. Their car started the season more than a second off the pace and they ended up just scraping ahead of Jordan in the constructors championship.
No one expected Formula One’s top team to make such a mess of the new regulations, but that’s exactly what happened.
In theory the same thing could happen again to McLaren. Just like 1998, next year’s technical specifications will have a monumental impact on aerodynamics and tyres, and will dramatically change the car’s appearance and handling.
McLaren might be more vulnerable to the changes than some other teams given they put so much effort into their 2008 campaign. McLaren kept developing the MP4-23 right up until the very last race of the year, and spent 2.5 million dollars on a new aerodynamic package for the season ending Brazilian Grand Prix. That final development, along with others during the season, must have been a drain on resources that could otherwise have been directed towards the 2009 car.
Renault had an awful time in 2007 because they exerted so much effort on their 2006 championship. McLaren might just have made the same mistake and are now lining themselves up for a fall.
Superstition isn’t on McLaren’s side either. The team has a trend of building a great car one year, only to follow it up with a lemon the next. They have now built two great cars in a row so maybe they’re due for another dud like the MP4-18 that never actually raced.
In addition to the possibility of McLaren getting the regulations wrong, it’s also possible that Lewis Hamilton will fail to adjust effectively to the new machinery. There will now be more mechanical grip from the slick tyres, but less aerodynamic grip from the wings, and this will totally affect the car’s drivability. It will advantage some drivers but disadvantage others, and whilst Lewis is one of the best in the business, it might just be enough to give him some trouble.
That is what happened to Villeneuve in 1998. The new cars didn’t suit his “push grip to the limit” style, and he never seemed to be the same again.
The extra large front wings next year will almost certainly be a thorn in the side of aggressive racers like Hamilton who may find themselves with plenty of broken endplates throughout the season.
If both Hamilton and McLaren fail to adjust in 2009 as quickly as their rivals, they could have a very difficult time defending their title.
Williams’ decline from World Championship contenders into midfield runners was amazingly swift. They went from scoring 15 podiums in 1997, to just nine over the next three years. It all started falling apart thanks to the new regulations, and the same thing could easily happen again next year.
Villeneuve’s career continued to slide beyond the problems he faced at Williams. When it became clear that his chances of winning races with Frank’s team were slipping away, he made a very brave but ultimately repentant decision to join BAR.
Villeneuve’s manager and long-term friend, Craig Pollock, headed up a consortium that bought the Tyrrell F1 team with British American Tobacco money. With Pollock running the show Villeneuve was free to join and could effectively write his own contract. It was an offer that was simply too good for Jacques to refuse. He signed a multi-million dollar deal with BAR, and did so knowing that he would only have to participate in sponsorship commitments, or winter testing, when it suited him to do so. BAR was very much Villeneuve’s own team and it was totally built around him.
Leaving Williams for a new outfit was always going to be a risk, but it was a calculated one. The chassis was built by Reynard, who were highly reputable, and the team’s colossal budget should have been enough to counter any serious development concerns.
The ingredients were fine but there was something wrong in the recipe.
Despite mountains of cash, and the promise of stunning results, BAR failed miserably. They did not score a single point in their debut season (beaten even by Minardi) and Villeneuve registered 11 consecutive retirements.
Although BAR improved significantly after their inauspicious start, they didn’t win a Grand Prix until three years after Jacques had left the team.
Joining BAR was the decision that pushed Villeneuve’s F1 career onto the wrong path. It may seem unlikely, but Lewis could very well make the same poor decision one day.
Hamilton is a highly competitive and very confident individual, but the skills that make him great driver do not necessarily make him a great forward planner. He likes to win, and might one day feel that McLaren are holding him back, or don’t appreciate his work.
Ron Dennis has a very strong history of driver mismanagement so there will always be the possibility of the relationship breaking down.
It already has once before. When Lewis failed to win the 2004 Formula Three Euroseries, he was told by McLaren that he would have to stay in the championship for a second season. Anthony Hamilton didn’t like that demand very much so went to other F1 teams, including Williams, in search of a new contract. When a fresh deal failed to materialise, Hamilton stayed with McLaren and went on to win the F3 title as requested.
There was more recent tension at the 2007 Hungarian Grand Prix where Hamilton ignored team instructions during qualifying and then argued with Ron Dennis about it over the radio. Hamilton admitted to expressing his frustration to Ron, and although he denied getting heated, it proves that he will not hold back when dealing with McLaren management.
I can imagine that a similar feud would have erupted at this year’s German Grand Prix had Lewis not been able to overcome the team’s strategic blunder that almost ruined his race.
Lewis may have said that he will never leave McLaren, but Formula One is a business and is measured on performance alone. In the end, sentiment counts for nothing. There are strong rumours that Luca Di Montezemolo actually pushed Michael Schumacher out of Ferrari in favour of Kimi Raikkonen to secure his team’s future, so even the tightest relationships in Formula One can be shattered.
Hamilton might one day lose faith in McLaren, or may simply want a new challenge. You can’t take for granted that Lewis will be dressed in silver forever. It is highly unlikely that Lewis will leave the team in the foreseeable future, but it could very well be on the cards one day.
Hamilton might find himself taking a similar risk to Villeneuve, and may find their careers continue to overlap.
Who knows, maybe eleven years from now Lewis will be releasing his own album and racing in NASCAR.
Stranger things have happened.