I see that Lewis Hamilton's biography, "My Story", (now there's an original title) is due to be released on November 5. Ignoring jokes about its brevity and so on, it might actually be quite interesting as a source of information on his years in the lower formulae and just how much input Ron Dennis had into his career.
The taster released to focus our attention goes straight to the dessert, however - the relationship between Lewis and his team mate, Fernando Alonso. I suspect that we are all hoping that Alonso does indeed leave McLaren soon so that we can move on from constant dissection of the squabble between these two. They are not the first team mates to have had a robust and ultra-competitive relationship, after all.
In fact, true friendship is pretty rare between F1 drivers, as mentioned by Alex Wurz recently. That is only to be expected, the nature of the sport demanding a level of competitiveness in its practitioners that is way beyond that in most other professions. The really surprising thing is that friendships between drivers do occur at all.
Alex mentions that he gets on well with Pedro de la Rosa (who doesn't?), Giancarlo Fisichella and Nico Rosberg, but the most obvious and genuine friendship between team mates this year has also been rather ironic in that it was ended rather abruptly by the team itself. I refer to Vitantonio Liuzzi and Scott Speed, of course, two drivers who had much to prove and only each other to be measured against. In the circumstances, it is quite remarkable that they seemed to enjoy each other's company and spent much time together in leisure pursuits away from F1 races. Have a look at the videos on Scott Speed's website to see just how genuine their friendship was.
Perhaps it was the hostility of the team towards them both that forced them together. But there is no doubt that, in spite of it being in each one's best interests to trounce his team mate on the track, they did not allow that to interfere with their personal lives. Critics would no doubt point at this as evidence of them lacking "the killer instinct" necessary to succeed in F1 and maybe they would be right. But I think it shows a healthy understanding that it is a sport in the end, something that is not more important than who or what you are.
"Nice guys come second," we say and are then astounded when our heroes prove to be selfish and spoiled, egotistical and vain. We react with surprise and shock when Alonso holds up Hamilton's pit stop and then tut-tut on being informed that Lewis disobeyed team orders. But we cannot have it both ways; if the bad guy always gets the prize, we can hardly expect the winner to be an angel.
So I find the tiff between the McLaren team mates unsurprising and slightly boring - without Alonso's constant feeding of the flames in his statements to the Spanish press, the business would be entirely unremarkable. Yet people will buy Hamilton's book to find out more; our appetite for human drama is insatiable. No doubt its sales will amount to "a nice little earner" for the latest British hero.
But I still say that the book I really want to read soon is Nigel Stepney's...
The taster released to focus our attention goes straight to the dessert, however - the relationship between Lewis and his team mate, Fernando Alonso. I suspect that we are all hoping that Alonso does indeed leave McLaren soon so that we can move on from constant dissection of the squabble between these two. They are not the first team mates to have had a robust and ultra-competitive relationship, after all.
In fact, true friendship is pretty rare between F1 drivers, as mentioned by Alex Wurz recently. That is only to be expected, the nature of the sport demanding a level of competitiveness in its practitioners that is way beyond that in most other professions. The really surprising thing is that friendships between drivers do occur at all.
Alex mentions that he gets on well with Pedro de la Rosa (who doesn't?), Giancarlo Fisichella and Nico Rosberg, but the most obvious and genuine friendship between team mates this year has also been rather ironic in that it was ended rather abruptly by the team itself. I refer to Vitantonio Liuzzi and Scott Speed, of course, two drivers who had much to prove and only each other to be measured against. In the circumstances, it is quite remarkable that they seemed to enjoy each other's company and spent much time together in leisure pursuits away from F1 races. Have a look at the videos on Scott Speed's website to see just how genuine their friendship was.
Perhaps it was the hostility of the team towards them both that forced them together. But there is no doubt that, in spite of it being in each one's best interests to trounce his team mate on the track, they did not allow that to interfere with their personal lives. Critics would no doubt point at this as evidence of them lacking "the killer instinct" necessary to succeed in F1 and maybe they would be right. But I think it shows a healthy understanding that it is a sport in the end, something that is not more important than who or what you are.
"Nice guys come second," we say and are then astounded when our heroes prove to be selfish and spoiled, egotistical and vain. We react with surprise and shock when Alonso holds up Hamilton's pit stop and then tut-tut on being informed that Lewis disobeyed team orders. But we cannot have it both ways; if the bad guy always gets the prize, we can hardly expect the winner to be an angel.
So I find the tiff between the McLaren team mates unsurprising and slightly boring - without Alonso's constant feeding of the flames in his statements to the Spanish press, the business would be entirely unremarkable. Yet people will buy Hamilton's book to find out more; our appetite for human drama is insatiable. No doubt its sales will amount to "a nice little earner" for the latest British hero.
But I still say that the book I really want to read soon is Nigel Stepney's...