All Too Human

Coming into the Formula One season of 2007, Fernando Alonso expected nothing less than a third consecutive championship, a feat that was only completed by two men: Juan Manuel Fangio and Michael Schumacher. Going into Melbourne everything was looking great for Alonso. Schumacher was gone, of whom Alonso bested in '06. He was with a new team, McLaren, the team he wanted to race for since his childhood. Alonso was fastest in practice and qualified second on the grid. Also he had the confidence in not having to worry about competition from his teammate, since he was a greenhorn rookie. All was right in the Spaniard's world.

Going into the first turn at Albert Park, however, Alonso's world was violently turned upside down and has never really been set upright even to this day. Alonso was overtaken by his harmless greenhorn teammate. Even though Alonso would finish second, his teammate finished right on the podium with him.

It had to be a fluke, many people were thinking. It was just a one off that would never happen again, perhaps. Even as Alonso took home a dominant victory in Sepang the No. 2 marked car at McLaren finished right behind him in second, tying Peter Arundell's record of consecutive podiums from a debut race that was set in 1964. The next week in Bahrain as Alonso faltered his teammate again finished second, thereby resetting the podium record. Alonso was no longer dealing with some new rookie. He was now dealing with a calculating and aggressive driver who drove like a battle-hardened veteran, not to mention the auto-crazed nation he hailed from. The Briton by the name of Lewis Hamilton had arrived on the Formula One stage by a blitzing storm.

The rest of the 2007 season proved to be a historic one for both Lewis Hamilton and Formula One. It was filled with controversy, treachery, excitement, and drama. The season played out like an action novel all the way to the ending. The hurricane's clouds began to gather at the Monaco Grand Prix, where Alonso won the race and Hamilton placed second, but a disappointed Hamilton stated the team wanted him to guard the rear for Alonso in order for him to take home the victory. Whether or not the accusation was true, Hamilton drove his MP4-22 to victory in Montreal and then followed it up with another win in the United States at Indy.

Hamilton would set the consecutive podium record at nine when it ended at the Nurburgring. Hamilton's streak only ended for two reasons. The first came during the last round of knockout qualifying when his right front tire failed which caused Hamilton to end up in a tire barrier off of the turn 9 and 10 chicane. The second occured during the race which was held under a down pour of rain. Hamilton spun his car off of the track and was helped back onto the track by a crane.

At Hungary, everything started to breakdown between Hamilton and Alonso. The incident in pitlane during qualifying where Alonso denied Hamilton a pitstop and flying lap by staying in the pit box served as a catalyst for everything that would occur later on in the season. Alonso would incur a five grid penalty for the race which bumped Hamilton to P1 and later on to victory. From that point on both the Spaniard and Briton would no longer speak to each other.

Then the so called “Stepneygate” (must we name every scandal after Watergate?) saga began. McLaren fought for its life between the FIA courts and the media. It's almost unbelievable that the two drivers' cooler heads prevailed through all of the pressure of both the FIA and the press. Only one incident occurred on the track and it happened at Spa. After exiting the hairpin turn 1 at the start, Alonso appeared to have run Hamilton off the track which would give Alonso the advantage in the Eau Rouge corner. Hamilton would later come back with a brilliant victory in Japan on a drenched circuit at Fuji. The victory extended Hamilton's championship lead to 12 points and with a victory at Shanghai, the rookie sensation would have secured the championship.

It would not be the case. The Chinese Grand Prix would be a wet one where the drivers started on intermediate tires. Hamilton qualified first and ran the first part of the race flawlessly. During his first pitstop the decision to keep Hamilton on the inters proved to be a fatal one. The rain had stopped and no more rain had fallen. The track dried out quickly and Hamilton was stuck on old intermediate tires that were wearing down to the chords. Kimi Raikkonen took over the lead when Hamilton went wide in a turn. When Hamilton came in for his scheduled stop on lap 31, he veered off into a gravel trap in the pitlane entry. With his car beached and unable to move it out of the sandbox, Hamilton was forced into his first retirement of his career. The event blew the championship wide open between Hamilton, Alonso, and Raikkonen in a showdown in Sao Paulo.

In the only mechanical problem for McLaren during the 2007 season, a gearbox failure plagued Lewis Hamilton in Brazil. He was able to fix the problem, but to no avail. Hamilton finished 7^th and behind race winner Kimi Raikkonen. Hamilton lost out the world championship to Raikkonen by an agonizing one point.

All in all, Lewis Hamilton had an absolute superb rookie season. No one has ever done what he has done within their first year. In 17 races, Hamilton secured 4 race victories and 12 podiums. Furthermore he only had two really big mistakes in the entire season; the one at the pitlane entry in China and when he ran off the track at Sao Paulo while trying to race Alonso for position when he should have been conservative by racing for points. Other than that Hamilton's rookie year was brilliant. He is the new star in the post Schumacher era that everyone expects to do well every race. He also has brought the British people back up onto their feet in Formula One as they can now cheer on a victorious winner who has every shot at winning the world championship which as eluded Britain since Damon Hill in 1996.

At the start of the 2008 season in Melbourne, the pressure had mounted on Hamilton to do well and expectations for the 23 year old were set high. Hamilton kindly responded by dominating the Melbourne race. Hamilton fared not so well at Sepang do to a five grid penalty for being slow in the “racing line” after his flying lap during qualifying. At Bahrain it seemed like all of the rookie mistakes he didn't make came down on him hard. Hamilton started out of the grid slow. Trying to make up for lost time Hamilton ran into the back of Alonso's Renault and lost the lower half of his wing. Following too closely behind Alonso Hamilton further ran into the back of the Renault. Hamilton had to pit and the incidents relegated him to a 13^th place finish. Later on in the season Hamilton drove to stunning victories in wet weather at Monaco and Silverstone.

For every mistake Hamilton makes he is put up on a cross by the media and fans alike, but whenever the 23 year old wins the media and fans exalt him and put him up on a pedestal like nothing ever happened. He is adored by many, but is also maligned by others. The media itself has this creepy obsession with everything that is Lewis Hamilton (no offense, itv). No wonder he lives in the tax haven that is called Switzerland. The media is his own personal watchdog and can be hypocritical at times. Fans are also to blame. They either criticize his mistakes or they ignore them, but when he wins there's dancing in the streets.

The second half of the season is all up in the air. Hamilton is technically the points leader, but he shares it with Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa at 48 points each. Can Hamilton win his first championship? Yes he can, though much remains to be seen. Lewis Hamilton is a good driver, but he isn't a great driver yet. This is only his second year in the top tier of motor sport in the entire world. He still has to prove himself and he must push himself extremely hard to do so. The pressure that the media and fans alike put onto him can't be much help either. It must be agreed that the young Briton is under tremendous amounts of pressure to do well from untold millions. Hamilton is like the great Atlas. Instead of holding up the sky, however, Lewis Hamilton must bear everyone's hopes and dreams for him while he also tries to attain his own ambitions. It is a lot just for one man to bear and in the end, that is what he is: a man. Lewis Hamilton is not a race god, he is only human, and all too human in my opinion. And what is the definition to be human? To be human is to be fallible. What will make Hamilton Superman will be his ability to pick up the pieces of his mistakes and create a masterpiece from them and he is fully capable of doing that.

Now it may sound like that I am not a Lewis Hamilton fan. On the contrary, he is my favorite driver on the grid. I even bought the McLaren team shirt for christ sakes! Originally, I was not a fan of his. I thought he was another Roger Federer, just too good at what he does. It was only until the European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring did I become a Lewis Hamilton fan. When I saw him take that nasty shunt into the tire barrier, get back into the car the next day, spin out, and still bring the car home in 9^th place, I became a believer. The events that transpired on the wet weekend in Germany proved to me that Hamilton was good and wouldn't be kept down. I myself will pull my hair out sometimes when he makes mistakes, but then I realize that he will make mistakes. He isn't perfect. When he ran off the pitlane entry at Shanghai I jumped out of my chair and screamed, at 4a.m. I might add. Maybe that's what makes many of us true fans. We rejoice when our favorite competitors win and then we crucify them when they blunder. Fans do it a lot and we are all guilty of it, but we shouldn't. Fans must sit down, think, and remember that even though we think they are superheros, they are just like the rest of us. The only difference is that they are filmed doing their jobs and it makes them famous. We must always remember that they are all human and they may actually be more human than the rest of us.