Hamilton savours his greatest day

Tuesday, 25 November 2014 00:42 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Reuters: Lewis Hamilton declared Sunday the greatest day of his life after ending a thrilling season with his second Formula One world championship.

If winning the first title with McLaren after a last-gasp move in Brazil in 2008 was special, then the triumph under the Abu Dhabi floodlights was something else again. “The feeling I have now is way, way past that and above and beyond,” the Mercedes driver told reporters with tears in his eyes. “It’s the greatest feeling ever. I’m grateful to God, I’m grateful for my car finishing and really, to everyone, thank you so much,” added the Briton. Hamilton went into Sunday’s race 17 points clear of team mate Nico Rosberg but with the German on pole position and an unprecedented double points on offer. Everything hung on a knife-edge, one mechanical failure or mistake liable to make the difference between elation and despondency. The Briton had made several errors in qualifying, enough to prompt the team’s non-executive chairman Niki Lauda to suggest the 29-year-old might not be sleeping too soundly on Saturday night.

Hamilton had insisted he would sleep like a baby but the reality was very different. He was nervous, tense at what the day might hold. “Niki was right, I didn’t sleep last night. I went to bed at about 1 a.m. and woke up at like 5 a.m.,” he admitted. “I thought for sure I’m going to be tired when it gets to the race but somehow I felt composed.” Hamilton made the start of his life, rocketing off the line and away before Rosberg could react. At the finish, with Rosberg out of the points and wrestling with engine troubles, he lapped the floodlit circuit with the British lag fluttering from the cockpit. The win was his 11th of the campaign, with Mercedes winning a record 16 in total, and made him the first British double champion since Jackie Stewart in 1971. “This has been an incredible year. I just cannot believe how amazing this has all been,” he said. “This is the greatest moment in my life...it feels very surreal. It feels like an out-of-body experience. I feel like I’m back here watching this going on, it’s not really happening.”

Hamilton and Rosberg shake hands on epic season Reuters: Lewis Hamilton hailed Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg as a “phenomenal competitor” on Sunday after the beaten German extended a congratulatory hand to his triumphant Formula One title rival. “Perhaps things naturally will ease up a little now,” said the Briton, a double world champion after Rosberg’s bid to thwart him was hampered by engine troubles that left him out of the points. “He was graceful enough to come up to me and see me after, which I really appreciated. It was really big of him to be able to do that.” The two have been pushing each other hard all season in a campaign reminiscent of the great battles of yesteryear between Brazilian Ayrton Senna and French team mate Alain Prost at McLaren. Boyhood friends since their karting days, the two Mercedes drivers tested their relationship to the breaking point with the pair barely on speaking terms as it became apparent that one of them would be champion. In Monaco, Hamilton had suggested Rosberg had deliberately denied him a tilt at pole position with an error that brought out warning flags, while in Belgium in August he accused the German of crashing into him on purpose. The latter brought everything to a head, with the team’s non-executive chairman Niki Lauda admitting he had wondered whether the partnership could work, but the icy relations have thawed again. “It’s been so intense between us all year long,” said Hamilton. “There’s been good moments and bad moments. “Without a doubt we’ve had a friendship or a relationship that we built a long, long, long time ago so that will always be there. “He was a very, very fierce competitor this year, he did an exceptional job. He’s going to be quick for a long time...it could have been either one of us today.” Lauda, who beat Prost to the title by just half a point in 1984 when they were at McLaren, said the post-race handshake between Hamilton and Rosberg had made his day. “I really got emotional when I saw on the podium that Nico went up and congratulated him,” said the Austrian, himself a former triple champion. “Nico went up as a sportsman, normal and without negative emotions and congratulated him. This is the way life is and therefore I am very happy for both of them because it needs Lewis also to accept Nico’s (hand).”

FACTBOX Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton Reuters: Factbox on Mercedes driver and Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton: Born: Stevenage, England. Jan. 7, 1985 (29 years old)

Hamilton’s paternal grandfather emigrated to England from the Caribbean island of Grenada and worked for the London Underground transport system. His full name is Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton. The name Davidson was taken from his grandfather, who drove a school bus in Grenada.

His parents divorced when he was two. Father Anthony worked for the railways while mother Carmen worked for the local council. He first sat in a go-kart on a family holiday in Ibiza when he was three. He started karting seriously when he was eight years old.

* Hamilton was a winner in every category of karting, taking his first British title by the age of 10, and joined McLaren’s young driver programme in 1998. He was European Formula A kart champion in 2000, with current Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg runner-up.

The Briton won the 2003 Formula Renault UK title with 10 race wins, the 2005 Formula Three Euro series with 15 wins and the 2006 GP2 championship, following on from Rosberg.

Hamilton made a sensational F1 debut with McLaren in 2007, aged 22. In his opening race in Australia he finished third, was second in the next four races and then won the sixth and seventh races in Canada and the United States.

His run of 2007 podiums ended after nine in a row and he ended the season second overall with four wins, one point behind champion Kimi Raikkonen.

In 2008, Hamilton won the title, aged 23 years and 301 days. At the time he was the youngest ever world champion and he took the title in thrilling style with an overtaking move on the last corner of the last lap of the last race in Brazil.

In 2009, Hamilton finished fifth overall. He was fourth in 2010, fifth in 2011 and fourth in 2012. He then moved to Mercedes for the 2013 season on a three-year contract.

Hamilton won 11 races this season to Rosberg’s five, becoming the most successful British driver of all time in terms of race wins. He was won 33 grands prix.