The Side of Lewis Hamilton You Don't See: F1 Insiders, Russell & Ocon Reveal the Truth

Being ruthless is a necessity in that situation and we've seen it from every champion that we've had in the sport. You know Lewis in his first championship he was ruthless when he needed to be you know throughout that year with Nico Rosberg you know ultimately Nico came out on top because you know he did what he had to do. It wasn't popular there was tense moments in the garage because of it but ultimately that's what champions do. They do what they need to to win and I think that to sort of bash that and say oh well you know you could have been a bit kinder we're here to win I'm not here to make friends sometimes you know it's nice to have friends and people to appreciate you but ultimately if you're not here to win and that sort of nice guy persona is more important to you then you're not going to win. Can we talk about diversity in Formula One? Honestly like for me I will always appreciate Lewis's race craft and his achievements and his ability on the track but for me personally his legacy and the most important thing he will ever have done in this sport is to start this conversation you know he put himself out there it was a great personal risk and expense you know Lewis you know he wanted to fund independent research into the reasons why we were lacking this diversity. How brave did you think that was of him? Lewis forced the conversation that plenty of us wanted to have for years he put his own time which is not an easy thing for someone to do to put their own time when you're in his position his time and his money to do it right so we are making progress we're getting better but yeah it's about recognising that there are different barriers for different groups but ultimately the reason that we're making progress in this now is largely down to what Lewis did. How much has it changed? You know when I started out there were like up until I worked in Formula One I'd never worked with another person of colour you know there was no one for me to look to and say. So in all of the feeder series that you worked in? Never like any junior category. How many years? Like I did like three four years before my first job in Formula One you know as like an apprentice and doing sort of contractor work and bits when I first started and it wasn't really until I got into Red Bull just before Lewis officially launched the Hamilton Commission I got the opportunity to sit down with him and some other engineers in the paddock and we sort of discussed what we felt the barriers were from our own experiences and we sort of gave this sort of feedback to him and I did a case study for the group that were doing all of this Hamilton Commission research. It was you know it was sort of it was inspiring to sit down with someone and see how passionate they are about something that I had an interest in but didn't have enough knowledge about at the time you know like because whilst I recognised that there were issues in the paddock I was so early in my career I was so focused on just making sure that I could do what I wanted to do that I didn't I didn't have time or sort of an inclination to sort of worry about the bigger picture. I always got the impression from Lewis that it was something that it was like this is important and it doesn't matter what other people think about it it's important and we're going to change the sport you know and because of that sort of bravery that he had you know he is going to leave this this industry in a much better place than he found it. What would you say is that the thing you've learned the most from someone that's won as many world titles as him? Lewis is an incredibly unique character I think he's incredibly inspiring with all of his sort of activities and projects he has off circuit he wouldn't be when you look at maybe drivers from the past who are just pure racing drivers I'm going to wake up living and breathing this sport and he does things so differently to so many other people yet has still had so much success along the way. You mean he doesn't fit in the traditional mould of how a Formula One driver is? Yeah I'd say so and yet he still had so much success and I think I've used this analogy before but when I look at Federer, Nadal and Djokovic you know these are three greats of the sport statistically you know they've all basically achieved exactly the same achievements yet they have three totally different ways of playing I'm sure they train differently when you watch them they look different when you see them on court you know they excel on different courts or playing fields or whatever yet they're three greats and I think the thing I take away from that and also from what I take away from Lewis is that there is no one path to success. Lewis just had these as I said it's this oodles of natural talent and with him he's got these tendencies and traits where when you go out in SP1 he's like an octopus all over the wheel he'll change every setting on the wheel near enough he's this optimizer that he'll use data as a starting ground but he's got a feel beyond anything else for it and he has no issue exploring the boundaries and that originally manifested itself in you'd often see him go off at turn one he'd find the absolute limit of braking and it would just push him wide at turn one then abort the lap and one of our biggest frustrations with him was that out of 20 laps he did one he's like come on you've got to do more than that and actually if you look at the maturity Lewis had between 13 to now you'll see he completes every lap so he's now found a way of still gaining the experience of the marina to the lap out of it but he was this perfectionist that wanted and braking was his strength his forte maximize everything under braking and then I know the limits of the car and then I can build from there and get into the rhythm of things um but his is because he's explored all these boundaries he knows in just a few laps in SP1 and he learns the track incredibly quickly what the boundaries of the car is what the limits are already within his tools that he has available in the steering wheel which are quite fast for what it's worth and understands therefore how to get the car into the right positioning for as the grip comes up very very impressive where others are still just spending seven or eight laps learning the track he's explored quite a bit of the boundaries um it's a team sport but it starts with beating your teammate you don't be your teammate you're in question and the key behind it is that that's just one fight but actually each individual contributes towards the success of the team Lewis when he joined us was I mean the most uh within my Mercedes career the most naturally talented driver that I had worked with including Michael just so much natural talent um the journey we took him on was it isn't we'll win championships together his mentality at the time when he joined was was a brilliant one I can see why successful but it's I'm going to win every race at all costs doesn't matter what the cost is I'm going to win that race done and if you speak to him today it's migrated to he accepts that the second place is in the third place is how you win the championship and building and working with the team on the days where you can't win the race will give you far more reward than pushing everyone away in order to win that single race out of it was there a moment where you watched the work that Lewis Hamilton did aside from his natural ability and thought that's incredible yeah something that you remember seeing yeah what was that definitely um I remember Lewis coming from like different marketing events and all these things in the race weekend um you know Lewis a very busy man uh you know apart from racing that's some of the differences compared to some drivers you know which are more focused into the racetrack he's got you know a very busy life in general and seeing how he switched his focus from one thing to another for me that that kind of amazed me um that he was straight away on point back with his engineer after something completely different um and he didn't like take 10 minutes to refocus and rework with his engineers because you don't have time to do that and he always had his you know paper boards uh with notes um and he was always having notes not to forget things from one year to another or from one session to another and this is what I do as well now