Sir Patrick Head and Mark Gallagher join Natalie Pinkham to review the US GP and Lewis Hamilton's world title success on the F1 Midweek Report
Thursday 29 October 2015 13:04, UK
F1's transformation through the ages means that Lewis Hamilton shouldn't be compared to the other legends of the sport, the Midweek Report guests have argued.
But Sir Patrick Head and Mark Gallagher believe that Hamilton's global appeal and visibility means that the Mercedes driver could become one of the most 'significant' world champions F1 has ever seen.
Hamilton has become almost as famous for his globe-trotting life away from the track as his record-breaking exploits on it and Head, the co-founder of Williams, believes that the 30-year-old's lifestyle choice should be welcomed rather than questioned by the sport.
"He obviously has quite a sophisticated life outside Formula 1 but he appears to have learnt how to put 100 per cent into it when he's within the Formula 1 arena, but then go out and enjoy what he enjoys outside," Head told the F1 Midweek Report.
"And I think that will end up with him being a much more significant world champion. In fact, Bernie [Ecclestone] has criticised a number of past world champions for being inward-looking and only having any sort of public life within the Formula 1 arena. That isn't the case for Lewis, so I think he'll be beneficial from the point of view of putting a good image on Formula 1. It's good to see."
Hamilton joins an illustrious list of triple world champions, led by his boyhood Ayrton Senna, and is only the 10th driver in F1 history to win three or more championships. With no end in sight to Mercedes' recent dominance of the sport, Hamilton could yet end his career as one of the most successful drivers in F1 history, but Gallagher and Head are adamant it would be inappropriate to rank Hamilton in the pantheon of F1 greats purely on the number of titles he wins.
"A lot of these comparison figures are slightly meaningless because it's a different era in Formula 1 in terms of car reliability. If you look back at the past, people like Jackie Stewart, their cars broke down as many times as they finished races," argued Gallagher, the former boss of Cosworth.
"I don't think just looking at numbers of world championships [tells you everything]," agreed Head. "To give himself the challenge of matching Schumacher or something like that, I don't think that's a challenge he'll give himself.
"He'll want to win, he'll want to enjoy his racing while he's doing it, and if it works out he wins many more world championships that'll be fine. But I doubt he'll give himself the target of a number of championships."
Meanwhile, Head has warned that Nico Rosberg faces "a long winter" as the Mercedes driver bids to recover from the crushing defeat he has suffered at Hamilton's hands this year having taken their 2014 title dual to the final race a year ago.
For this week's show, Sky F1 pundits Damon Hill and Johnny Herbert also joined Ted Kravitz for the 'Mini Notebook' to review the US GP and Hamilton's title victory.
Watch the video below to watch their discussion on why Hamilton has been so dominant this year and a "complete champion".
