Hamilton Links Success With Risk
Sep 20, 2011 | 05:22 PM
#1
Thread Starter
| Teamspeed Pro
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 23,875
From: Orange County
Hamilton Links Success With Risk
Hamilton Links Success With Risk
Text and Photo by Dana Larkin
In a recent interview with Reuters, 2008 Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton did not mince words when equating racing success with taking risks. The 26-year old McLaren driver opined that the most successful drivers in the sport have always been those willing to take risks and push the limit. “I think just generally in motor racing there is a fine line between being very dangerous and putting other people’s lives at risk and then being just beneath the danger zone,” he said. ”And that’s kind of where you just try never to go over the line. But this is motor racing and we are racing wheel-to-wheel at 200 mph so it’s going to happen. There are crashes all the time and people are going to touch at some stage . . . I think being slightly more risky in some ways is what separates the faster drivers from maybe the not-so-fast drivers.”
Hamilton has been criticized recently for what some have called recklessness on the track – especially by the stewards. In 2011, Hamilton has been assessed four drive-through penalties and two reprimands due to his aggressive style. And the criticism doesn’t stop there. Even some of Hamilton’s competitors have voiced concern about Hamilton’s driving. “I have some comments as well from drivers that say I am too aggressive but again it’s just trying to find a fine balance. I’m not here to ruin anyone else’s races, I am just trying to beat them and that’s the best way to do your talking. If I have been too aggressive and I have come together with someone, in Monaco for example, I think okay. You just step back a little bit, but not completely change my approach because this is my life and this is how I do it.”
Hamilton also stated that he would have been right at home in the paddocks of yesterday when drivers were more willing to take risks. “I think the guys in the older days were taking risks, their lives were more at risk I guess,” he added. “I would have loved to have driven in the olden days.
“I don’t know why I’m like that but I’ve always been like that, more on the risky side. Not on the risk side to put others in danger but just I am willing to take just a little bit more . . . You see generally older drivers sometimes that have families and things that kind of lose a little bit . . . I’m still young and I’m not in that position yet and I can’t say if when I have family whether that will happen. It’s a long way away.”
Hamilton currently sits fifth in the driver standings – over 100 points behind current World Champion Sebastian Vettel. Vettel has yet to be penalized for unsafe driving in 2011.
Last edited by Barrister; Sep 20, 2011 at 05:32 PM.
Sep 20, 2011 | 08:38 PM
#6
Faint heart never won the fair lady. The fair lady being Nike the goddess of victory. Though it seems to me, that while the racing is exciting, and we appreciate the brilliance and reaction time of the risk takers, we may be overlooking the cold hard facts that F1 requires of it's champions.
It often is a frigid and calculating game in which the team is reduced to a series of competitive ratios or formulas if you will. Innovation turns on a dime as rules are stretched, but always behind those rules exist the calculators of what is allowable, or mechanically and humanly possible.
Imagine a template in which the drivers reaction time bypasses the musculature of the body, going directly into the machine. Would we still consider it racing at that point? Would Fangio consider today's races as gutsy and daring, or merely technological gadgetry? Do we adjust our description of Nike, with the technology before us?
The Ginger Lawyer, an excellent writer and devotee of Hamilton, has perhaps raised the question as to whether or not the hubris of an Achilles such as Hamilton, is stronger than the tech of an Odysseus.
It often is a frigid and calculating game in which the team is reduced to a series of competitive ratios or formulas if you will. Innovation turns on a dime as rules are stretched, but always behind those rules exist the calculators of what is allowable, or mechanically and humanly possible.
Imagine a template in which the drivers reaction time bypasses the musculature of the body, going directly into the machine. Would we still consider it racing at that point? Would Fangio consider today's races as gutsy and daring, or merely technological gadgetry? Do we adjust our description of Nike, with the technology before us?
The Ginger Lawyer, an excellent writer and devotee of Hamilton, has perhaps raised the question as to whether or not the hubris of an Achilles such as Hamilton, is stronger than the tech of an Odysseus.
