He’s certainly got business sense because all this hating is almost certainly driving people to the Mail online, his social media pages and website, all of which will be monetised in some way. These days notoriety is more profitable than popularity and so, ironically, you’re acting as his unpaid PR guys
Mate. He behaves like a twat. He’s unpopular. He doesn’t connect with the masses like say, James Hunt. He doesn’t connect with the rest of the paddock either. I know he’s a focused sportsman and likes to win and all that but he always behaves like a twat. I had personal experience with him at Almeria in Spain and guess what? He was a twat. I know you think we all beat down on him because he’s not the same colour as most of us. But that’s not the case. He’s unpopular because he’s a twat. Brown people can be twats too y’know....
I don’t know the guy so I have to defer to your personal experience of him but most of the ire is directed at him not for general twattishness or his colour either but for his wokeness and dress sense, at least some of which I’m sure is a deliberate ploy to generate column inches/internet traffic (which some might say is another species of twattishness). What happened at Almeria?
He rocked up for some track time. He likes his bikes too. He was totally incognito and no one knew he was there until he’d gone. He was ushered into a garage right down the bottom away from us riff raff. He was actually in my group it turned out. Anyhow, my mate was surreptitiously commandeered to go and spanner for him while Simon Crafar briefed him and took him out to show him some lines. So, caught up with Glen (Spanner man) after LH had been spirited away. Apparently LH just sat with his daft hat on and hood up between sessions fucking about on his phone. Glen tried engaging him about set up, tyre pressures etc. But LH could barely bring himself to speak to him. Glen said he was hard work. A twat basically.
Maybe he was getting grief from Nicole Scherzinger because he was on track rather than celebrating her 34th birthday for the 5th time in a row? She was 34 for years on end until fairly recently but I just looked on t’internet and she’s now 42.
From what I read over my girlf’s shoulder while she perused the Mail Online’s trashy celeb pages, she finished with him because he didn’t want to settle down yet and when not working he spent too much time playing with his cars and bikes. Mate, if I was him I wouldn’t be settling down either though. I can sing a few bars of that tune because after I broke up with my ex-missus in 2010, at times I needed a spreadsheet to keep track of my love life. If I was able to live the life of a Poundshop Hugh Hefner as a 40 year old barrister, god only knows what it must be like to ask an F1 champ in his early thirties to try and commit himself to one woman for the rest of his life. And all that “plays with his cars and bikes too much” is also “irreconcilable differences” talk too!
In fairness, he took what looked like a big risk leaving the winning McLaren team to join Mercedes, formerly Brawn/Honda/BAR/Tyrell (if memory serves me...) so no guarantee of success but now a team challenging Ferrari's records. What really annoys me is that this team is nearly 100% UK DNA (mainly Tyrell) based in Brackley, using the old Ilmor engineering engine technology (UK) and rebranded/funded by German Mercedes. They play the wrong anthem
Remember when LH stopped at McLarens pit garage for a tyre change? In his Merc I must say that was gold. And he was lucky he was still upstream of Mercedes. Don’t think F1 cars have a reverse gear??
If I had my time working on F1 cars again I would rather work on his car and win championships than on the car of the nice guy and come nowhere. Unfortunately everything he or people in his position say gets put under scrutiny from all sides where as on here for example, people can spout utter nonsense or downright offensive stuff and nobody cares. I don't like a lot of what he says and does but he isn't running my country or my council nor does he have any other influence on my life. I do believe he knows the names of the guys working on his car which is a lot more than some of the 'nice' guys in F1 ever did. Or perhaps they just didn't know my name
In the early days of reverse it was something you showed the scrutineers on stands but they weren't usable at all. One of the cars I worked on utilised the lock nuts on the end of the gearshafts as gears and you crunched a third gear between the 2 which gave you reverse at a incredibly long ratio and would undo the nuts if enough torque went through them. ln later years they became usable as the FIA would make you show that you can reverse during one of the official tests or practice sessions. Reversing in the pit lane is not permitted so in case you overshoot your pit you have to go round again.
Whether he’s a poorly dressed twat or not I don’t really know , but what he is , is a nothing more than a car driver, if he wants to express his opinions and make a difference then he should stand for public office
As I pointed out in the other Lewis Hamilton thread, the unfavourable comparisons with James Hunt fall a bit flat because a little known fact about him is that outside all the boozing and the shagging, he was actually pretty “woke”. He was an outspoken opponent of apartheid which resulted in him being disciplined a few times by the BBC for making politicised comments, and when he couldn’t get out of commentating on the SA GP without breaching his contract, he donated his fee to, IIRC, the ANC.
