The Bahrain paddock was at its sleepiest at around 2pm on Friday. The morning session had finished. The thrum of cars lapping the Sakhir circuit had stopped. The sun was out for almost the first time this week.
Suddenly there was a flurry of activity. Lewis Hamilton was about to arrive at his scheduled press conference and a phalanx of photographers and journalists jostled for position outside the entrance leading up to the Bahrain press conference room to catch him arriving on his scooter wearing Ferrari red.
Only, Hamilton did not arrive. The photographers waited, lenses poised. The Netflix cameras filmed the photographers waiting. Then a rumour went around that Hamilton had arrived via the pitlane and was already in the room, and they all rushed into the building.
No sooner had they gone in than Hamilton arrived on his scooter – probably a little puzzled as to why there were no photographers waiting for him – entered the building, apologised for being late and took his place alongside Liam Lawson, Oscar Piastri and Yuki Tsunoda. Hamilton dances to his own tune these days.
“Don’t ever compare me to anybody else,” Hamilton warned in a Time magazine interview which appeared on Thursday and has since gone viral after he dismissed the negativity of “older, ultimately white men” who have commented on his career and what he should be doing. “I’m the first and only black driver that’s ever been in this sport,” he added. “I’m built different.” He is not wrong there.
The past few weeks have been like the third coming of Hamilton. If the first version was his supernova-like rise, the sport’s first black driver, the first world title with McLaren, the growing pains, the split with his father, and the second version was the winning years with Mercedes, becoming the most successful F1 driver of all time, flexing his muscles, becoming one of the biggest sportsman on the planet, Hamilton 3.0 is the 40-year-old fully stepping into his power.
Hamilton today is probably the most influential, most powerful driver the sport has ever known.
Ayrton Senna inspired a messianic cult-like following. Michael Schumacher bestrode the Noughties like a colossus. But Hamilton is on another level – his global reach, his desire to use his platform, his willingness to speak up on big issues, his bank balance.
What other driver could be the creative lead on his own Time magazine front cover, and feature himself, dressed all in white, standing in front of a black stallion named Aroma, recreating the iconic Ferrari prancing horse?
Who else could co-produce a Hollywood film starring Brad Pitt? Or co-chair the Met Gala this May alongside Pharrell Williams? (LeBron James is honorary chair.)
Hamilton has so many irons in so many fires he could not even recall, when asked by Time magazine, whether he had put any money into TGL, the indoor golf competition recently founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. (He had.)
The marriage of the biggest star in the sport to the biggest team in the sport has raised Hamilton’s profile only further. And in all honesty Hamilton has earned the right to use his enormous platform to stick two fingers up at his detractors. After some wobbles earlier in his career, he has done it his way for the past decade or so, and been phenomenally successful in doing so.
I am not sure I would agree with him that all the criticism aimed his way has been racially motivated. But there is no doubt that certain people have been taking pot shots at him for years – his dress sense, his music, his lifestyle, his tax arrangements, his jewellery, telling him to focus on the driving and cut out the preaching. That last one is what really gets people’s goat.
Most importantly, though, Hamilton feels there is a racial element to some of the criticism. Whether he is right or wrong about that, it is impossible to gainsay him because, as he told Time magazine, no one has ever been in his shoes before.
Time will tell whether Hamilton will be vindicated again – whether he can have his cake and eat it at Ferrari; make his Hollywood films, put on his fashion galas, push for greater diversity at Maranello, and still win that eighth world title. Or whether his latest comments will begin to look hubristic if he is soundly thrashed by team-mate Charles Leclerc.
At the moment, with two weeks to go until the season opener in Melbourne, Hamilton appears to have the bit firmly between his teeth. He claims he could go on “until he is 50” the way he is feeling. Formula One’s owners will surely hope he does. As Friday proved once again, the paddock will be a lot quieter once he is gone.
