This year, the championship has seen Sebastian Vettel’s dominance, who has led most of the races and has never finished out of forth; at the beginning the fans and the journalists claimed that Lewis Hamilton was Vettel’s main contender, the one who would have been the only driver challenging the new World Champion. Finishing second at the first race and winning in China, he predominated on the other top-pilots: Jenson Button, Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso.
The car’s performance, however, began to get worse, with Ferrari recovering his lake of pace and coming with Alonso ahead of him. In Montecarlo, Lewis tried to arrive in the first positions, after an unlucky qualyfing, doing some great overtakings, but he got two penalties after a collision with Felipe Massa and Pastor Maldonado, respective finished out of the race and in 18th position. That was a very disappointing day for the British, who came behind his teammate, Jenson Button, a challenger for the victory with Sebastian and Fernando. In the interview he showed all his frustration, accusing FIA of a penalizing treatment against him and saying that Felipe Massa and Pastor Maldonado were “ridicolous” and “stupid”.
One race after, in Canada, he had another bad result; among rain, Safety-car, red flags and all those crucial factors, he had a collision with Jenson Button, not his fault, that costed him a DNF. At the end of the race, his teammate got the victory, and this probably caused more jitters and agitation in himself. Moreover the car suffered a consistent lake of pace in Valencia,
while Vettel kept winning and finished only twice in second and Fernando Alonso was showing a great recovering by Ferrari.
But from Silverstone GP something changed: Alonso won the race, and RBRs began to “suffer” a little gap; Hamilton came in 4th place, and in Germany the hopes for the title reborn, thanks to a superb win by Lewis, the first podium without Vettel, and more lake of pace by the Red Bulls. In those moments, Ferrari and McLaren were decided to fight until the extreme the German leader, and that was an extremely good moment for Alonso-Hamilton title chances.
Unfortunately, the Hamilton’s bad results chain returned. In Hungary he was leading the race, but because of a wrong pit decision and a dangerous move that costed him a Drive-throught penalty, he arrived in 4th. Even worse in SPA-Francorchams, where he crashed into Kobayashi and retired from the race, while Sebastian Vettel returned to win. In Italy he was stuck behind Schumacher; Button, instead, managed to overtake them both and finished in 2nd, while he came again in forth, clearly faster then Alonso’s car, but too late to begin a fight.
And now Singapore: that was certantly one of his worst races, especially for his racer-mood; fighting with Massa, in fact, he punctured Brazilian’s tyre, and broke his front wing. This move was judged irregular and so he got another penalty, but from the back of the field he recovered with some fantastic overtakings until fifth place. But the most frustrating moment was after the race, where Massa went to “congratulate” him saying: “Good job bro, very good!”, and he answered: “Don’t touch me again”.
Lewis Hamilton has already said that this was one of the worst years -or the worst- in his career, characterized of the alternance of stunning and bad moments; with 168 points, he’s fifth in the champioship, obviously already mathematically out of it with Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso and almost 20 points behind his teammate, who after 2 consecutive retirements caused from an error of the pit in Britain and hidraulics problems in Germany, kept finishing on the podium, maybe producing pressure on the 2008 World champion.
All these bad results he got this year, however, didn’t compromise his reputation: Lewis is still one of the best drivers in the Circus, thanks to huge talent and stunning grit in overtakings, that are always fundamental to entertain the fans. For sure he’ll be strong again, if not at the end of this WC, in the next one, because he deserves to be more than the winner of a F1 season.
IL PIT STOP 
Hi Ilaria, another very interesting post 🙂
I don’t know what’s the matter with Lewis this year; he seems all out of sorts and I guess the continual penalties don’t help his mood much. He’s such an enjoyable driver to watch but if you look at his results over the years he has almost always had such extreme high’s and lows. I would even go as far as to say that his championship winning year in 2008 was as bad as this year but since he also had a few wins under his belt the bad results were forgotten.
I must admit I do love to see him challenge from the back of the grid, he puts in some awesome moves but I think he does tend to rely on the fear factor and in effect forces people off the road. I know it’s often said that Senna is his hero and I wonder if his style of getting one wheel ahead of a contender and then cutting in is just following the type of agressive driving that Senna was famous for. Problem is, when Lewis does that to Massa or whomever is his target Lewis is equally likely to suffer a DNF or face a penalty, then all the good work is undone, he has to learn the addage that to finish first, first you have to finish.
It’s tricky when you don’t have the best car on the grid, you have to be agressive and yet creative in getting the car home and scoring the podiums. It seems that the “must win at all costs” strategy isn’t always the right way to go as Jenson has proved this year and that too must be hurtful to Lewis, along with the continual criticism.
I wonder if there is any truth in the stories I ‘ve heard that the drivers are intending meeting before Suzuka to discuss his driving style. I do hope that now that the championship is almost all done and dusted that Lewis can find a bit of inner peace, it’s not fun watch someone seem to unravel before our eyes. Here’s hoping he has a better 2012 season