Lewis Hamilton's Growth in Maturity Is Clear Despite 2014 Brazilian GP Defeat
Even before the start of the 2014 Formula One season, it was widely thought that the only man who could beat Lewis Hamilton to this year's world championship would be himself.
His Mercedes team-mate, Nico Rosberg, was considered a highly competent racing driver, a worthy grand prix winner and more than capable of stringing together a stern title challenge—but someone who Hamilton should ultimately dispose of if he had any ambitions of cementing his place as a true great of the sport.
The destiny of the crown, then, always hinged upon just how Hamilton—perhaps the most emotional driver on the grid—would react, both on and off-track, whenever things went against him.
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Would he shroud himself in self-pity, make mistakes in a desire to compensate and compound it all by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time? Or would he accept the moments of defeat magnanimously in the knowledge that he would emerge victorious in the end?
It seemed as though Hamilton was reverting to the dark days of 2011, the year of his self-implosion, around the mid-season mark, when he began to make a series of bizarre statements.
Prior to the Monaco Grand Prix, he told the official Formula One website that because he grew tall on the streets of Stevenage, whereas Rosberg, the son of 1982 world champion Keke, was surrounded by "jets and hotels and boats and all these kind of things" as a youngster, Hamilton's "hunger" to win the title was somehow more extreme.
That very weekend, Hamilton—hidden behind a snarl, a pair of super-sized sunglasses and a series of short, snappy answers—reacted poorly to Rosberg's controversial mistake in qualifying, before telling Sky Sports' Pete Gill the following day, "We are not friends," reducing a sporting rivalry to a playground scuffle.
Less than two months later, the 2008 world champion made another jibe at his team-mate, telling the Guardian's Paul Weaver that the Wiesbaden-born Rosberg was "not really German" ahead of the race at Hockenheim, during which Rosberg wore a helmet inspired by his nation's recent FIFA World Cup triumph.
"a shame,i would have loved to carry the trophy as a tribute to the guys.but of course I respect the legal situation pic.twitter.com/esCboJkL4c
— Nico Rosberg (@nico_rosberg) July 17, 2014"
There is little coincidence that Hamilton's outbursts were made during his worst run of form of the year, a five-race period that saw him take just one win at Silverstone as Rosberg added three to his tally in Monaco, Austria and Germany.
It was a time that saw the British driver suffer from rotten luck—his retirement in Canada and brake failure in qualifying at Hockenheim are two examples—yet Hamilton was frequently the architect of his own downfall, making mistakes and errors of judgement in qualifying at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, the Red Bull Ring and Silverstone.
Almost four months on from the German Grand Prix, Hamilton is now on the brink of his second world championship, leading Rosberg by 17 points with just one race remaining after Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix—and it shows.
Hamilton, fresh from a personal-best streak of five consecutive wins between the Italian and United States grands prix, seems at ease both on the track and in front of the microphone, with his leap in maturity best highlighted in Sunday's race at the Interlagos circuit.
The Brazilian Grand Prix was the win that slipped through the net for Hamilton, whose big chance of taking the lead from Rosberg was missed when he spun at Turn 4 as he was in the process of producing a series of fast lap times in the hope of jumping his team-mate at the second round of pit stops.
"I'm disappointed with my mistake today but I felt great out there.I'll be pushing just as hard in Abu Dhabi #BrazilGP pic.twitter.com/Nhyd45ok4l
— Lewis Hamilton (@LewisHamilton) November 9, 2014"
The time lost as the British driver's car pointed in the wrong direction was enough for the German to maintain the lead, with Sky Sports' Bruno Senna estimating that Hamilton would have been ahead of Rosberg by 0.3 seconds after the pit stops had the No. 44 car avoided the spin.
Despite missing out on a sixth straight win, an 11th victory of the season and an extension of his points lead to the far more comfortable buffer of 31 ahead of the final race, Hamilton remained cheerful, telling Sky Sports' Pete Gill and James Galloway: "Naturally, you’ll be disappointed when you make a mistake, and I did, but I felt great out there. I didn’t give up, I caught up and I kept on pushing."
His persona in the Interlagos paddock was unrecognisable for a man who just a few years, or months, ago would arguably have reacted to the same result, the same race, by sticking out his bottom lip and allowing his head to drop slightly.
Interestingly, Hamilton claimed during the post-race FIA press conference that he "clearly had a lot more pace than Nico today," something that he later reiterated on two occasions to Sky Sports in a separate interview.
Although he recovered from his spin to finish just 1.4 seconds behind Rosberg by the chequered flag, as per the official F1 website, the FIA's fastest laps data highlights that Hamilton's quickest time in the race was just 0.064 seconds faster than the best lap produced by Rosberg.
With his claim rather baseless, it seems as though Hamilton is making a conscious effort to extract every single positive from every single situation, almost as if he is reassuring himself of his qualities—and at the same time dismissing those of Rosberg—as the pressure mounts ahead of the all-or-nothing season finale.
A world championship season is as much about the battle within as it is against one's rivals.
It is about self-awareness, identifying and acknowledging your weaknesses relative to your peers, and self-improvement, dedicating your time to eradicating them from your performance or, at the very least, limiting their effect.
It is about reinventing yourself, maintaining the process of evolving into the fullest possible package.
And now with the attitude to complement his skill behind the wheel, Hamilton—despite coming second in Brazil—is the winner of Formula One's development race.
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