Thursday, November 01, 2007

Hold your noses

Pardon my mixed metaphors, but please hold your noses as the British press finishes slobbering over Lewis Hamilton.

Unlike CAR, I decided to wait till the dust died down to comment on the end of the Formula1 season. It was magical in many ways - a dream end-run for Raikkonen culminating in him winning the championship. The showing up of the smug rookie. Importantly, it was in so many ways a redemption of the talent of the perennial bridesmaid Kimi - in danger of adding more wins to his impressive and (then) championship-deprived kitty. And yes, I am on my way to being right.

All that is however in the past now. Raikkonen has his championship. Lewis Hamilton was and is the best-performing rookie F1 has seen in a while. And lest we forget, the BBC and the whole of the British press is there to remind of us that. Two weeks after the championship has ended, sample the BBC F1 page headlines as of 31st October, 10 days after the championship was over:

Hamilton 'may be negative for F1'

Motorsport boss Max Mosley says Lewis Hamilton could have a similarly negative effect on Formula One to Michael Schumacher if his success continues.

Please, comparisons with Schumacher? Schumacher nursed and built an ailing Ferrari team into a formidable racing unit. So did Alonso, once at Renault and again at McLaren. It'd be interesting to see where Hamilton will be if Alonso leaves McLaren. Or where Hamilton would be in a team that didn't have McLaren's capability in the first place. 

F1's new star - and it's not the champ

Lewis Hamilton has made a huge impact inside and outside F1

Hamilton's maiden season

How Lewis Hamilton came close to winning the F1 world title

But he didn't win it, right?

Hamilton a credit to the sport - Walker

Right. And Alonso and Hamilton will now do a Yeh Dosti... jig.

Inside Sport: Hamilton's debut season

In-depth interview: Lewis Hamilton

Oh, who actually won the championship, after changing cars, shifting to a different brand of tires and going to a different team? Add the fact that he was coming from behind and that he won the most number of races despite not finishing two races because of reliability, and you have:

Raikkonen the playboy king

F1's new champion is a maverick off the track and formidable on it

Riight. One article on a deserving new champion, with a qualifier on his personality off the track. Read the article: while balanced, it praises Hamilton so much. Ironic, considering it's a profile of the champion and not the rookie wannabe who almost was.

The rest of the British press, yes, but I expect better of  the Beeb. They have an 'international version' page there for a reason, innit?

1 comment:

CAR said...

excellent post Aj. But in reality what BBC is doing is no different from what the Indian Media does when we defeat any paltry team at cricket. BBC is british, Lewis is British and McLaren is British. I figured I would let them boil for a while.

I now stick to formula1.com and some other german websites.. :-)