The Forgotten "Other" World Champion

After reading AutoCar UK's John McIlroy piece on Sebastien Loeb’s history making victory went by quietly unnoticed, drowned by the euphoria surrounding Lewis Hamilton clinching the 2008 Formula One World Championship, I felt compelled to add further.




I admired Hamilton's skill and he truly deserves the championship win. But after watching this young bloke in his first 2 years in the sport, one has to wonder - does he have to be such an arrogant prick?! This week, 23-year old Briton Lewis Hamilton not only won the world championship, but along the way also broke F1 history's record for being the youngest F1 World Champion (previously held by Spaniard Fernando Alonso). But at the same time, he also broke another record of sorts - the record for making the most arrogant comment when Hamilton likened himself with Aryton Senna.

"I've always felt I had a connection with him, that we're somehow similar," he
told Motor Sport magazine. "I do crazy things that others wouldn't do and I feel
like I have an edge, too. I feel I share something with him." - Lewis Hamilton.

Now come on, the late Aryton Senna is almost like a god-like figure in Formula One. Nobody, not even seven time world champion Michael Schumacher speaks in that way. In fact, even among the company of world champions, none have ever spoken of themselves in the same breath with previous greats like Juan Manuel Fangio, Aryton Senna or even Nikki Lauda or Sir Jackie Stewart. Not Mika Hakkinen, not Damon Hill, not Jacques Villenueve and certainly not Michael Schumacher. As Schuey once said, how can you compare yourself to the past legends, when racing was so much more dangerous and the cars were so much more different.

I was appalled by Hamilton's cocky response when asked on the controversial incident with Kimi Raikkonen in Spa-Francorchamps.

"Well, that's his driving, that's all," he said. "That is how he drives. If you
don't have the balls to brake late then that is your problem! At the end of the
day, in those situations it is the driver who can feel the grip more and put the
car more on the edge. "And I know I am great in those conditions. I felt the
grip more than him, I knew where to place my car and I did place it in different
positions to him and I found the grip." - Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton was later penalised for his dangerous driving which resulted in Kimi Raikkonen eventually crashing out, a charge which he defiantly deny.

Over to the dirty, rough and tumble world of rallying, Frenchman Sebastien Loeb won his 5th WRC title and broke a new record for having the most number of WRC wins and became the most successful driver in world rally history. Previously Juha Kankunnen and Tommi Makinnen held the title of having the most WRC championship wins (4 times). Loeb now joins the ranks of the many past rally legends. But his achievements was eclipsed by Lewis Hammilton's win.


In the world rally stage, Loeb is shares some similarities with Michael Schumacher, in the sense that Sebastien Loeb's skill is almost like he is in an entirely different class. He dominated the WRC in much the same way Schuey dominated F1. Loeb outclassed all his rivals to win the World Rally title from 2004 to 2008. But both Sebastien Loeb and Lewis Hamilton are world's apart in terms of their character, despite both being history making record breakers in their own right. The Frenchmen is more humble and is likeable chap even among his competitors. I doubt Hamilton finds such favours in Vettel, Glock, Alonso or Raikkonen after his past driving stunts, they even commented that Hamilton drives as though he is alone on the track.

The past legends of world rallying. Some of the are no longer with us - Henri Toivonen in his tragic Lancia, Colin McRae's ill-fated helicopter, Richard Burns' brain cancer.



Sebastien Loeb and Daniel Elena. Probably the most successful driver co-driver partnership in history.

I've always likened Lewis Hamilton to a product of corporate public relations work; so fake, so "plastic", so right, so manufactured. Lewis was thrusted into a go-kart at the age of 8 by his father Anthony Hamilton. Anthony dedicated his entire life to train and mould his son to be a F1 world champion, a commendable effort but one has to wonder whether is he trying too hard to realise some lost ambition he couldn't realise earlier, through his son?

Sebastien Loeb on the other hand, had a more "normal" childhood. In fact he was an accomplished French gymnast, a 4 time Alsatian champion. Loeb didn't start competitive racing until he was 21! Sebastien Loeb proved that he is not a man defined by the points or championships he won when in the 2005 Wales Rally Great Britain, his fellow competitor Markko Martin crashed heavily into a tree, killing his co-driver Michael Park. Loeb was leading the race but when the stewards announced that the remaining stages would be cancelled, meaning that Loeb would win the race and world champion crown, Loeb reacted a most unexpected manner. He deliberately slow down his car to receive a 2 minute penalty as he did not want to win the title under such circumstances. His actions meant that the win was passed to Petter Solberg. Such show of sportmanship can no longer be found in the highly commercialised soulless world of Formula One.

Maybe it is the nature of WRC driving that makes their drivers to be more rooted on the ground. Unlike F1 drivers, WRC drivers don't get treated like superstars. They are grease monkeys who repair their own cars by the roadside as WRC rules stipulate that the cars can only be repaired by team technicians at designated stages. Rest of the time the drivers and co- drivers are on their own. Got a ruptured radiator piping? Fix it. DIY style. Got a puncture? Pop the trunk and get out the jack yourself.




Images from SebastienLoeb.com.

You will never see this sort of thing in F1. This is a LHD car, I wonder how can Loeb continue driving with his co-driver Daniel Elena "hanging out" at the window.


Grand Prix racing these days are only a shadow of what they used to be. In a bid to expand the popularity of F1, Bernie Ecclestone has transformed Formula One from a largely European centric sport to become the world's largest travelling circus, with TV viewership as much as the Olympics, the only difference is while the Olympics is held every 4 years, F1 is held every 2-3 weeks. But along the way, F1 has lost its spirit of gentlemen sportmanship.

Maybe Formula One has become too safe, too clinical, that the newer generation of drivers have no respect for each other. They approach it not too differently from the way they would approach a Gran Turismo video game on a Playstation. They overestimate the ability of their peers, as well as theirs. In the old days, grand prix drivers get into the car not knowing if it will be their last, and as such you don't pull off overly ambitious moves that will put other drivers in danger. You race on the track but there is a certain level of respect for one another. When Nikki Lauda crashed horribily in the old Nurburgring, it was not the marshalls that pulled him out of the burning wreckage. It was his competitors who stopped and pulled him out. I cannot imagine today's F1 drivers doing something like that now.

"It has been 13 years and 11 months since the death of Ayrton Senna. At the
speeds modern cars do it'll be like an aircrash. You can't go on without something going wrong somewhere eventually. And somebody will die. The moment somebody dies there is a new awakening. It is going to be a big shock to this fraternity when somebody gets killed. These guys don't know how to deal with a death. They have never seen it. They have never been up close. I pray to God they never do have to learn that. But the law of averages says that when you are doing 200mph, millimetres apart, with mechanical failure or human error, you are going to have an accident. I have the highest respect for Lewis. He is the best thing since sliced bread but he is inexperienced. There will be even more accidents now that traction control is gone." - Triple F1 World Champion Sir Jackie Stewart on Hamilton's refusal to join Grand Prix Driver's Association, a lobby group pushing for better driver
safety.

As a reward to Sebastien Loeb for winning his 5th World Rally Championship for Citroen, his main sponsors Red Bull will be bringing him to test the Reb Bull Racing RB4 F1 car next week in Barcelona. I am not too keen to see him move to F1.


There was a time when Formula One was poorly organized, car safety was a joke and marshalls run around scenes of accidents like schoolchildren. We have progressed much from the dark ages of racing, but when the element of danger and the possibility of death is removed, it becomes less of a sport and more of a circus where drivers have no respect for each other. We take it for granted that everytime some F1 car crashes heavily, we expect the driver to climb out of the car, wave to crowds that he is fine before hopping on to the marshall's scooter for a ride back to the pits. Well it wasn't like this all the time. It was the effort of the previous greats, especially Nikki Lauda and Sir Jackie Stewart, who both suffered some terrible crashes in their F1 career who used their influence and constant lobbying to pressure FIA to step up its game.

My point? There was a point of time when F1 drivers care more than just winning. Hamilton calls it a determination to win the championship, I call it a poverty of character and a lack of perspective of what matters in life. The world and the young does not need another role model in his character.

Roger Williamson's fatal crash in 1973, where a certain David Purley tried in vain to pull him out of the burning wreckage.


Ronnie Peterson's fatal crash at 1978, when James Hunt jumped to his rescue.


Nikki Lauda's fiery crash in Nurburgring of 1976. Fellow drivers Arturo Merzario, Guy Edwards and Harald Ertl stopped their cars and fought through the flames to pull Lauda out. He was lucky enough to survive. Nurburgring was eventually banned from F1 racing as it was deemed too dangerous. (The current Nurburgring F1 track is a different section from the original Northern loop raced by F1 in the 1970s).


Hamilton calls Raikkonen as having no balls. I beg to differ. The men above are the true men with "big balls of steel," to be able to forget about a race win to attend to a fellow racer in danger, that to me takes more courage than braking later than your rivals. Compared to these men, today's newer crop of PR polished F1 drivers look like a bunch of pussies.