Lewis Hamilton - a much needed wake up call
by John Surtees
 I have followed Lewis for a number of years mainly because of my getting involved in karting eight years ago when my son Henry came back from a test at Buckmore Park and said “daddy that’s what I want to do”.
It was interesting to look at the development from karting to cars. Perhaps the finest example of course is Michael Schumacher, someone who still values that time he spends in a kart for his fitness, his mental alertness and ability to relate on a one to one basis with a very basic machine. Karting is where it all begins. Even the multiple motorcycle world champion Valentino Rossi told me that he started karting before he went he took up two wheels.
But for those who think that karting is the beginning and end of it, one has to look a little further. Yes it is a wonderful grounding, but not everyone will come through the karting mould and necessarily adapt to cars. In the time when I travelled the circuits in an intensive period in karting I looked at many young karters. I saw many who were quick - but quick in a way that, to my mind, will not fit with the transition to cars.
You can go quickly with quite diverse driving styles but a smooth driving style can get the ultimate out of a kart albeit the driiver may encounter more difficulty in getting the correct settings to get that speed. A kart with its solid axle relies on getting that inside rear wheel off the ground. So you will often find drivers who are working away at the wheel, yanking it this way and that, being as quick as the smooth drivers. They are easier to set up the kart for too. But it is not those drivers who will find the transition from kart to car an easy one. It will be a select few for whom the transition will be a natural one.
A very special position
 Lewis, through his successes in karts and having caught the eye of Ron Dennis, got into a very special position - a privilege in many ways because he was able to get a seat in some of the best cars in the categories in which he drove. But the important thing was that he was dedicated and got the job done. There are many who have had opportunities before and have wasted them. Lewis, helped by his father, was focused and went about it in a very purposeful fashion - precisely the way in which he has approached Formula 1.
In racing there are drivers and there are racers. The drivers come up the slower way and have to develop their career and are normally the people who end up being the number twos - if they get that far. The racers are the ones that have speed from the very start.
It was interesting to note when the fervour over Rossi was at its peak that some pundits said he would transfer immediately that incredible talent and speed he has on two wheels onto four. Well it wasn’t to be. At the time - despite all the benefits which might have come to him and the team from sponsorship and the excitement of an Italian joining Ferrari - I voiced some words of caution. No top team can afford a passenger. It is only those down the grid that have to accept the 'pay drivers'. In the final analysis it the stop watch that counts. It is history now that Rossi decided to stay where he was.
A new spirit
So, the superb achievement of Lewis in his first three races in many ways did not come as a surprise to me. I think a certain cosiness has developed within the main body of drivers in Formula 1 that needed a bit of a shake up. Of course Lewis has had the right car and is fortunate to be with a superb driver in Alonso who has developed his career in a very commendable fashion. The pair has brought about a new spirit within the team which, I think, can only take it to new heights.
On the opposite side, I can’t help but say Ferrari got it wrong. Frankly, I have never thought, and I may be proved wrong later on in the season, that Raikkonen was a Ferrari man, certainly not in the wake of someone with the total dedication (both on and off the track) of Michael Schumacher. It needed more of an Alonso to go with the speed, and perhaps slight unreliability, of Massa.
But Lewis is a wake up call for all concerned and, from now on, you will see many changes taking place. One that I would like to see is Formula 1 putting something back into the sport lower down the ladder. It creams off virtually all the sponsorship that is available. That is unfortunate for all the lesser formulas and the people trying to develop their careers. What I would like to see is Formula 1 introducing a system that feeds back some of the vast sums that it generates to support - perhaps by way of scholarships - for the youngsters that show real promise within the junior formulas through to GP2.
McLaren's Ron Dennis put in place a sensible junior development programme. Others have played at it - but generally not in a very serious fashion and often with people who just don’t understand the needs and requirements of the younger drivers. So one of the things I would like to see Bernie Ecclestone do in the coming years is to see if he can get Formula 1 to acknowledge the fact that there is at present a large gulf to be filled between karting and Formula 1 and that talented drivers need more support to allow them to progress through the junior formulas.
There is another factor too - one which I have been working on for years -namely the question of government support. The government benefits from the motorsport industry to the sum of something like £4.5 billion per annum. It should also be noted that motorsport is one of the only sporting activities which actually has an end product in terms of developing people and technology. Yet it is totally ignored.
Government support
Only when I looked at the Sport England support programmes did I find a small payment being made in Scotland to a karter, motorcyclist and a car driver. Again this may partly be due to the fact there is so much publicity about the £ millions milling around in Formula One. But the fact remains that that it is not at grass roots level. A further factor is that participating in motorsport is a little more expensive than going out and getting a pair of football boots. But the returns that the country can also receive, I believe, are higher.
Yes, we need a new British Formula One World Champion to join Andy Priaulx who has done such a superb job in World Touring Cars. But we need also to feed our motorsport industry with young enthusiastic people. Opportunities need to be taken out into the community to get such youngsters aboard and light that spark which can set them on a career path. To do that the sport needs the support of government.
So the Lewis wake up call signals a change - a change whereby Formula 1 thinks seriously about the catchment area upon which it depends and puts in place a structure to support it . A change whereby government looks seriously at what helps GB Limited (and just how much the motorsport industry contributes for little, if anything, in return). It deserves support, not at Formula 1 level, or to salvage Silverstone, but to give people from a wider spread of society the opportunities to get involved.
So thank you Lewis for fulfilling the promise that you showed when running round circuits like Buckmore Park in those early days. You had a good grounding and now you are showing what you can do. But, most importantly, you are opening people’s eyes - and that can only be to the benefit of everybody in motorsport, except, perhaps, some of those freeloaders who have just jumped on the band wagon or, in turn, have become percentage players over the years.
We won’t have seen the best of you yet, and I think the opposition have a few more surprises in store for them. But, as you know, there are other young people out there to whom you will be an inspiration, showing just what is possible. I just hope the powers that be take note and help to put in place the rungs of the ladder so that talent that's out there get its opportunity.
Pictures:
1) Hamilton...composed in and out of the car
2) Hamilton with his mentor and team boss, Ron Dennis
07 May 2007
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