The Spanish Media Ought To Have Respected Lewis Hamilton

Like nearly every Formula 1 season that brings up massive excitement and severe ups and downs, not to forget surprising outcomes, the 2024 season too, has demonstrated its fair bit. And that is when we are just four races into what is the longest season in sporting history.

It could be argued that the biggest shocker is that Sir Lewis Hamilton’s troubles still haven’t ended; the seven time world champion having not been at his best and amid some troubles in the last two seasons.

But what’s clear is that the Stevenage-born is a fighter and a titan of the sport. Not someone who would give into pressure without trying to pull things back together, which is something that would be playing on in his mind.

Having said that, does every driver who is struggling deserving of a rather harsh treatment in the press, the very outlet that he has time and again coloured with various victories and triumphs?

Here is a case in point.

Not long after Sir Lewis Hamilton’s race retirement at the recent 2024 Australian Grand Prix race that his portrayal in F1 media especially in Spain has begun depicting the mega multiple world champion in poor light.

One of the leading platforms based out Spain talked of Lewis Hamilton as a driver in decline. Interestingly, this is the very Lewis Hamilton who has to his name no fewer than six race wins at Spain, the very country whose media have not minced words in portraying Hamilton sans the respect he deserves.

The feature story in the leading Spanish media first began its narrative by lavishing effusive praise on none other than Carlos Sainz Jr., the winner of the most recent Formula 1 Grand Prix, wherein it would say the following:

“Sainz’s feat would deserve a complete documentary if he were British like Lewis Hamilton, with a victory days after undergoing surgery for appendicitis and with three incisions still in his abdomen, which must have bothered him on the torture rack for the body that is F1.”

However, not long after, the story would begin to take into account the recent performances of none other than Seven-time world champion, Lewis Hamilton, currently clearly struggling at Mercedes. It would state the following:

“In the offices of Maranello, or rather Turin, they made a decision to do without their currently best driver, already in 2023 ahead of Charles Leclerc, to place a driver in clear decline not so much in talent as in morale and of attitude, as the seven-time champion has been demonstrating in recent times.”

That being said, while there is no usage of offensive language let alone an expletive, the way the Spanish media threw light on Lewis Hamilton, clearly upset about the Briton being given a chance at Ferrari at the behest of Sainz, was by no means polite.

It would highlight the following:

“It (the decision by Ferrari to recruit Hamilton) is not based on sporting values, but on marketing. May God preserve their sight. Hamilton’s abandonment (engine) when he was clearly behind Russell again indicates that he is no longer the undisputed first driver at Mercedes and it is very likely that he will not be able to beat the Monegasque in 2025 either.”

This is exactly where it gets a bit immature to say the least. While it is true that Hamilton is currently not the happiest man on the grid, his struggles magnified by driving a car that is not up in terms of race pace with other handling issues, broadcasting his future Ferrari stint in the way the publication did seems in bad taste.

Surely, when Lewis Hamilton will begin his Ferrari innings, Leclerc would be the more experienced of the two at Maranello, purely by virtue of having spent longer time at the Scuderia family. But what sense does it make to highlight the 2020 F1 world champion as being someone who’ll be like a cakewalk for Leclerc to beat? The duo haven’t even begun racing as a pair yet.