As Sir LewisHamilton begins the quest for an 8th F1 title this weekend, read this 2021 WIREDUK story about the secrets behind his performance, his activism in a sport where he is the only Black driver, and his off-track future: 📸: Mamadi Doumbouya
On Sunday August 2, 2020, Lewis Hamilton was piloting his black Mercedes Formula 1 car around the final laps of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone when his front-left tyre exploded.
But, on the last lap, as he approached a twisting left-hand corner called Brooklands – slowing down from around 290kph to 150kph with a firm press of the brake pedal – a strange sensation reached him via the carbon fibre seat, which is custom-moulded to his body at the start of each season. His tyre had gone, too. “My heart just dropped,” he says. “In that moment, you have to concede that the fact is you might lose the race.
When he crossed the line – going 160kph on three wheels – Verstappen was still six seconds behind, and Hamilton was fighting so hard to keep the car on track that he missed the chequered flag altogether. “Is that the last lap?” he asked Bonnington. F1 demands a unique combination of precision engineering and athletic ability, and Hamilton acts as the rudder of the Mercedes team, a conduit for the efforts of hundreds of experts – on aerodynamics, composites, energy storage, fuel economy, data science, physiology, sleep and a dozen other disciplines – each shaving fractions of a second off the overall performance.
But physical strength is only part of the story. At the elite level, sporting success comes down to three factors: anticipation, high-speed decision-making, and the ability to perform under pressure.
While sharp vision is an important part of this ability – as a kid Hamilton earned the nickname “Eagle” from one of his friends because of his visual acuity – there’s another well-honed sense that’s perhaps been equally key to his success. “It’s the gyroscope in him,” says veteran F1 journalist Maurice Hamilton, who remembers how Hamilton’s hero Ayrton Senna could also “dance on the edge of adhesion”.
“I think the thing that stands out most is his ability to adapt, to adjust and to find the edge of performance in whatever challenges he has,” says Phil Prew, who was Hamilton’s race engineer in his first three seasons in F1 with McLaren. “It’s no surprise that when the conditions are unpredictable, that’s when he really shines.” When his tyre burst at Silverstone last August, he took a few moments to adjust, and then finished the lap only 23 seconds slower than the previous one.
By then, his parents had split up. On Christmas Day 1992, Anthony presented his son with his first go-kart – he’d bought it “tenth-hand”, and spent weeks sourcing new parts, polishing and painting it until it gleamed. Hamilton was a shy kid – he struggled at school, with bullies and undiagnosed dyslexia. But when he got in a kart, everything changed.
There were lessons passed down from Anthony, too. When Hamilton was eight or nine, his dad took him to a boxing class – he wanted his son to be able to defend himself against school bullies. Inside the ring, Hamilton was badly beaten by a taller, tougher boy. He ran out in tears, nose streaming with blood.
Hamilton is ridiculously competitive, whether he’s playing a friendly game of tennis with Anthony, or throwing javelins on a pre-season training camp in Finland. He has to win. “It’s in my DNA,” he says. Within F1, that manifests itself as a level of work that, one suspects, many other drivers don’t match. “I see it in some of the more fortunate drivers,” says Coulthard.
He admits that it’s difficult to reconcile a desire to protect the planet with F1, perhaps the least carbon-friendly sport there is. It was, Hamilton says, one of the points of negotiation in his new contract with Mercedes – a one-year deal which he finally signed in early February, and which also includes a commitment from Mercedes to support greater diversity and inclusion in motorsport through a joint charitable foundation.
After a remarkable debut season as the first Black driver ever to enter the sport, where you come within a whisker of winning the world championship, you turn up for testing in Barcelona for your second year and a group of spectators in the stands have “blacked up”: they’re wearing curly wigs and T-shirts that say “Hamilton’s family”.
After winning his sixth title in 2019, Hamilton was struck by how few people from diverse backgrounds appeared in the Mercedes team photo. In June 2020, he set up the Hamilton Commission – a research project being conducted by the Royal Academy of Engineering to investigate why there are so few ethnic minorities in motorsport: not just in the cars themselves, but in the engineering departments, the marketing and PR teams and beyond.
Hamilton wore a T-shirt highlighting the death of Breonna Taylor and took a knee to protest against racism while at the F1 Grand Prix of Tuscany in September 2020
日本 最新ニュース, 日本 見出し
Similar News:他のニュース ソースから収集した、これに似たニュース記事を読むこともできます。
UPS Suspending Services in China Could Cause Delays — Best LifeAs several Chinese cities and provinces tighten COVID restrictions, UPS has decided to restrict some of its services in China.
続きを読む »
Chris Johnson Opens Up About Being Shot, Feared Career Was OverChris Johnson is opening up on the shooting that nearly ended his NFL career and took his friend's life back in March 2015.
続きを読む »
What F1 Cars Would Look Like if F1 Got Its Act TogetherThe future of F1 will debut this weekend. But back in 2015, a designer conjured up three concept cars to envision F1's future. Not only are they excitingly different, they're gorgeous:
続きを読む »
The best nectar-producing plants for monarch butterfliesBeyond milkweed, there’s mistflower, blue curl, zinnias and more to keep the winged...
続きを読む »
‘If it’s alive, it sleeps.’ Brainless creatures shed light on why we slumberIn honor of WorldSleepDay, learn more about how evidence from evolutionarily ancient creatures is revealing that sleep is not just for the brain.
続きを読む »