Bling bling
Just look at him. Confidence levels way off the scale, driving as a double world champion surely should, shatteringly fast yet serenely composed, his team-mate utterly destroyed. Lewis Hamilton is in his time and he knows it.
Right now, season 2015, Lewis owns Formula 1.
Confidence is a beguiling attitude, so precious an asset for us all, but in the super-charged world of top-level sport there really is nothing more important.
We’ve all followed with interest the emotional rollercoaster ride that has been the ups and downs of the two Mercedes drivers over the past 16 months or so. From the opening laps of the first 2014 pre-season test, the three-pointed star’s two most famous employees knew the game had changed. No more ‘team-mates-as-friends’ nonsense; this was going to be an on and off-track psychological war.
And so it came to pass. By mid-2014 Nico Rosberg was way ahead, strolling around the F1 paddock looking just about as cocksure as I’ve ever seen any driver, ever. By complete contrast his rival cut a sad figure. A pale imitation of the Lewis we knew he could be, the Englishman looked out for the count.
Following the summer break it was all change. Trouncing his German rival, Hamilton dominated the second half of the F1 year. Racing to win after win, a second driver’s crown rested snugly on his head come season’s end.
Coming in to 2015 we wondered. Could Rosberg halt what everyone suspected would come to pass – a Lewis Hamilton whitewash? Seems not.
Nico seems distracted, almost blinded by the brilliance of Lewis; no longer able to outqualify his rival, Rosberg looks a little haggard, unkempt almost. Lots of cosying up to media-room hacks in a misguided attempt to garner public relations positivity is not the way to go. Taking his friendly head off and putting a race head on would serve him way better. Mid-race requests to his engineer perched on the pit wall, requesting details of his rival’s tactics and tyres, is at once both illegal and pitiful.
Meanwhile, at the head of the field, his nemesis races to another grand prix win.
Gold chains swinging around his neck in a west coast rapper-like style, a black flat-peaked cap looking just so, ear buds pumping bangin’ tunes, F1’s very own jet-settin’ LA dude wannabe has got it all goin’ on!
Of course we can’t know what will happen over the next few races and for the rest of the season, but what we can all be sure of is that Rosberg needs to get his head in gear quick-smart or the title will be gone.
Many of us are wondering what Dick Dastardly-like stunt Rosberg is planning for Monaco this year. It had better work, or the ear-piercing screams from the teenage girls that greeted Hamilton’s Bahrain race win will get ever louder.
Perhaps Nico should consider Coco Chanel’s famous bon mot: success is most often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable…
