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Why don’t people consider that Nico and Lewis’s falling out had to do with events or behavior around the championship competition and not the outcome? “Lewis hates Nico for beating him” just doesn’t seem to fit the way Lewis treats…everyone else who’s beaten him.
It’s not the title, it’s what winning it represents, which is everything you had to do to get there. You have to love someone a whole lot to be that angry with them, and I mean that on both ends. They treated each other like any other competitor, but this isn’t a sport where you make friends easily, and if we treated our friends the way we treat our competitors then none of us would have them.
The way I look at it is, without knowing the exact particulars, which we probably never will, is that things got all fucky around 2014 (I won’t go all the way to the end of Brocedes, there’s nothing additional to add really after that year). The timeline of that looks like this:
Pre-2013 season:
- Lewis moves to Mercedes from McLaren. Everyone except Eddie Jordan, only man to predict it, is completely astounded when this move is announced. Sure Red Bull have won back to back to back championships and Seb’s closest rival is his teammate Mark, but this is nowhere near the Red Bull domination we see today. In those seasons, everyone from McLaren and Ferrari would also take wins, probably multiple, and Nico himself even pulled one out in the Mercedes which was slowly improving. The move to Mercedes makes no sense?
If Lewis were unhappy at McLaren the sensible move would be to attempt to edge out Massa or Webber for their seat. Okay, maybe not Massa given Hamilton’s fairly recent at this point history with Alonso, and maybe Webber is gonna be hard to shift and he doesn’t want to play second driver to Seb at Red Bull, okay aaaaggghhh the best move is probably to stay at McLaren because Jenson, even if they don’t quite get along, is as affable a teammate as you’re ever gonna get at a front running team and who is second driver depends on the day and also there’s no way to tell which of those three teams is gonna produce the best car. It’s a gamble, better the devil you know.
You have to think, well, why does Lewis move to Mercedes? Yes, it’s been slowly improving and shown it can win a race on its day, but so can a Ferrari now. It’s not good enough. Ross Brawn is deeply admired in the paddock as a team principle but he is in the process of retiring and they’re bringing some new guy in. Schumacher’s retiring too, so he doesn’t do it to benefit from being teammates with him. No he does it for Nico, because Nico’s faith in that car is strong enough to sell it to Lewis, because they can have what they promised each other as kids if this gamble pays off. And it’s a risky choice, but Eddie Jordan’s really smart about stuff like this and Eddie Jordan likes it… Better the devil you know? Or better Nico, who you know even better?
2013 season
The gamble pays off! The Mercedes is looking good which means at least Lewis is in as good a position as he was before, maybe better, within a teammate he loves. This season passes mostly without incident and they finish fourth and sixth in the championship (Lewis fourth, Nico sixth). And really what’s the difference between fourth and sixth? Nico even wins two races! Which is one more than Lewis, even if Lewis finishes higher in the standings. Nico’s playing with the big boys now.
However, there is one race where Nico gets a team order. At Malaysia, the second race of the calendar, Mercedes orders him to stay behind Lewis. That’s not fair. They’re only two races in, neither of them has a clear bid for the championship yet. Lewis even says after the race that it wasn’t fair - that Nico deserved that last spot on the podium and not him - see Lewis bas his back!
Nobody really picks up on it because of Multi-21 at Red Bull. So he gets grumpy and at his home race in Monaco (the sport has a horrible history of pulling out team orders at a driver’s home race, the one place it’s supposed to be his race) he leads every lap start to finish so it can’t happen to him there. He wins Silverstone too and gets so many points that everyone can’t help sit up and take notice. Nico’s not a one hit wonder, he’s the real deal.
2014 season
They’re the favourites now! Mercedes looks amazing at testing now turbo-hybrid engines are mandatory and the real question is will it be Lewis or Nico? And Nico wins the first race in Australia. If that isn’t a statement of intent, nothing is. But Lewis gets him back in the next race in Malaysia. They’re just as good as each other really. (Although, Lewis did have to retire in Australia - are they really as good as each other?)
Bahrain and Spain
Bahrain is where it all goes wrong. They’ve been fighting all race and then late in the game a safety car comes out and it benefits Nico. (Happens all the time - sometimes you want a safety car, sometimes you don’t, it’s like rolling the dice… Or is it like getting help?) They race wheel to wheel on the restart, like you can’t do with anyone you don’t trust, and they kept it clean. Lewis wins and they have a silly play fight in park fermé and it’s fine really…
Until Lewis finds out that Nico used a spicy engine setting that Mercedes told him not to for those last couple of laps to give him extra power. Why would you do that? That’s cheating, isn’t it? But if it’s such a clear advantage then why aren’t Mercedes having them both use it? Like it’s not illegal, Mercedes just gets cross when they use it racing each other. But then aren’t you supposed to give it everything you’ve got when you’re really truly racing, like you want to be with your best friend, and Lewis could have used it just as easily. But Lewis still won without it - didn’t need it.
And to make it worse, Mercedes have a study they’re showing Nico about Lewis’ racing - Lewis doesn’t have one on Nico! Cheating! (Well, yes, it is from Malaysia where Lewis finished seventeen seconds ahead and in Australia it didn’t matter how Nico drove because Lewis DNFed and Lewis qualified better anyway - like this is perfectly normal behaviour within a team when you think about it, even the kind of behaviour you would expect if they’d decided already that Nico is second driver, but that’s NOT THE POINT - this is the kind of weird evil shit Fernando would do at McLaren!!!) Lewis gets a document about Nico’s driving too but the suspicion is already there. In the next race in Spain Lewis also uses the spicy engine setting, but he stays ahead. He wins with it.
Monaco
In Monaco, the next race, they’re qualifying and Nico’s got provisional pole with Lewis close behind. On the last chance lap though, he fucks up, runs wide and goes off (it happens when you’re trying to get that perfect lap - and Monaco is his home GP, which he’s defending, he needs this more than any other race) but Lewis is on a fast lap he has to abort and the yellow flags fuck him. And Lewis has always been bitchy right after he gets out of the car when things haven’t gone his way and it’s not him saying well wasn’t that convenient for Nico, it’s some of the less scrupulous pundits. And they’re asking him if he thinks it’s suspicious and he says “Potentially. I should have known that was going to happen.”
But what does that mean really? That Nico really wanted it and the chances of a mistake were sky high? That he will throw everything he has got at it to beat Lewis? Or that Nico’s a dirty cheater like the engine setting he promised he wouldn’t use, even though he could, and the spies he has in the garage. Yeah, it’s just like Alonso, who had his teammate crash at Renault to win him a race (though officially that was all Renault, Alonso knew nothing about it and was appalled) and wasn’t that another good friend of Nico’s? Nelson Piquet Jr. who will never be welcome back? Because he’s a dirty dirty cheater (even if he was pressured into it by the team threatening to end his contract). Or maybe he means that Nico’s just like his idol, Senna, who crashed a car just as on purpose and came away with a championship.
The stewards say Nico did nothing wrong. Toto, is insisting that Nico did nothing wrong. How could that possibly benefit Mercedes? It’s bullshit, it’s a conspiracy theory, it’s paranoia. But it doesn’t matter, Nico ruined his lap, the lap that would definitely have got him pole and he can’t touch him during Monaco, the track Nico knows the best in the the whole world, where overtaking is notoriously difficult without a safety car or a pit-lane leap frog. Nico wins without really giving Lewis a chance to compete. By the time Lewis gets out of the car, they’re not friends anymore in Lewis’ head. And he tells the fucking world, maybe even before he tells Nico.
Hungary
Lewis gets a team order. The team are on Nico’s side, conspiring against him and this proves it. (Or does it? Lewis had never had a team order from them and Nico had, and Nico had played nice, even if it was last season, and missed out on a podium. There’s a balance that needs to be redressed and he’s on a different strategy, on fresh tyres, and Lewis has a pit still to go, Nico will overtake and they need it to be clean and to do as little wear on either car as possible).
But Lewis isn’t moving. Says Nico can have it if he overtakes. Lewis is not even racing for first, it’s third place, just like last time. Not enough points to change who leads the WDC. And Nico’s racing for the win, for fuck’s sake. Lewis holds position, they finish third and fourth and Lewis gets a dressing down afterwards because Toto and the team think Nico could have won. (Why don’t they think Lewis could have won, even on completely the wrong strategy? Look, Niki Lauda has his back, even if he’s an old mad and a racer too who knows a true racer never yields). There’s no disciplinary action, not with Niki backing Lewis, it’ll look too much like fighting in the ranks and Toto has to stay in control.
Belgium
They touch. The greatest sin you can commit on the track is crashing with your teammate. Sure, you can crash with anyone else, especially if they’re you’re rival, but not him. It doesn’t matter if you’re racing hard for a championship. What’s worse - they’ve never done this before. They’ve always trusted each other racing wheel to wheel - that’s how you keep it clean. But they don’t anymore. Nico leaves his nose in, insists he won’t be bullied (and that should be fine, Lewis isn’t a bully on the track, not like Schumacher, or Max is now, not really, he’s a good, clean driver who knows when to back off). Except Lewis doesn’t back off heading into Les Combes and he breaks his front wing and punctures a tyre and he spends the rest of the race limping round the track. Nico comes off better and finishes second but Daniel Ricciardo wins, taking advantage of the chaos. And Lewis is insisting he did it on purpose but that’s how Lewis gets when he’s losing and he’s mean (he’s done it with every other driver who’s crossed him on the track, with the FIA when they give him penalties. He grows of it eventually, sort of, but he’s a real mean loser and even the pundits have noticed.)
Nico’s booed on the podium. By now the world is certain that he’s a dirty dirty cheater, even if the FIA doesn’t think he is and the team doesn’t think he is and the other drivers don’t think he is - Lewis thinks he is and the world is on Lewis’ side. To make things worse, Toto makes him apologise (yes he should have left some room, but wouldn’t that be more disrespectful, to let Lewis have it without fighting back? And he was sure that Lewis would back off, would know when it was Nico’s corner fair and square) and then he disciplines him anyway. He disciplines him for a racing incident when he wouldn’t discipline Lewis for calling him a cheater in front of the whole world. The team has never had Nico’s back, has never wanted him to be anything other than a second driver, a performing monkey to do what they want. And after all that Lewis still won’t forgive him for the thing he never even did.
Abu Dhabi
The rest of the season passes without incident. Lewis wins some, Nico wins some, everything’s clean and they’re not talking. They’re changing the scoring system here, from 12 points for a win to 25. Double, in every position and points for ninth and tenth now. Kinda silly to introduce it in the last race, surely they could have waited for next season? It’s a real unfair advantage in the championship if you do better than your rival here.
Nico qualifies on pole, but Lewis gets that perfect start and passes him. And he wins, because Nico’s car has a problem and he gets stuck in fourteenth. Toto’s telling him to retire but Nico refuses, says he wants to finish this, limps the car home to score nothing. Lewis won fair and square and that’s that. He goes into the cool-down room to congratulate him, even though he’s not on the podium. And later Lewis says that at least Nico is gracious in defeat. Doesn’t that hurt?
Lewis takes the title early next year. Nico spends 2015 planning 2016.