Ha-Ha-Hamilton not amused by stuttering form

Whatever cocktail of emotions currently bubbles away inside Lewis Hamilton, one certain ingredient must be pure bewilderment. Having long ago been knocked off his pedestal, the former champion is still in freefall – with his humility-parachute still refusing to open.

The soothsayers’ initial disregard of any notion that Hamilton should adapt his driving style has weakened as rapidly as the McLaren man’s string of misjudgements has lengthened. More recently the experts have gently counselled caution, but Hamilton’s poor form has steamrollered on, undisturbed. There is a joke in there somewhere – ‘Hamilton’, ‘steamroller’ – but it will take a colder cynic than this one to make it.

In Singapore, McLaren’s Team Principal, Martin Whitmarsh, called for the return of the ‘Old Lewis’. Whether or not he actually took heed, Hamilton tangled with Ferrari’s Felipe Massa on lap 12, breaking his own front wing, puncturing the Brazilian’s right-rear tyre and earning himself a drive-through penalty. One can picture the aforementioned cynic, icily assembling the compilation video – a veritable world-tour of drive-through penalties with Hamilton as the star.

This is the same man who, a fortnight earlier, was so race-ruiningly careful in tip-toeing around Michael Schumacher’s Mercedes for 27 laps. Unfortunately these 27 laps glare ever more sharply in contrast with the half-lap that it took McLaren team-mate Jenson Button to weigh-up and successfully execute his own manoeuvre on Schumacher. It was this performance which drew that rallying cry from Whitmarsh. Hamilton is damned either way, it seems.

Hamilton would do well, though, to learn from his lesser-paid, lesser-rated team-mate. Unquestionably Hamilton has the knack for qualifying, but his power to think beyond the next corner or the next lap – or at least beyond his own cockpit – could be honed through observation of the ultra-reliable Button. How can anyone still call Hamilton the king of overtaking, now that his team-mate has such a high success-rate and a catalogue of gutsy yet clinical moves? It seems a long time ago that the experts were criticising the latter for joining ‘Lewis Hamilton’s team’, and his current successes are surely all the sweeter for those initial forecasts of doom.

It will be argued that these dim prognoses of Hamilton’s future are equally premature; after all, every driver endures rough patches throughout a career. However, what should be of grave concern – and, indeed, of greatest regret – is the fact that Hamilton imploded in 2010 too – and that was an infinitely more winnable championship. Forgivable of a novice was Hamilton’s disastrous 2007 run-in (17 points clear with 20 to play for, at one point), but in 2008 it took a sequence of pit-lane calamities and reliability problems for rival Felipe Massa for Hamilton to secure the title – even then, only at the final corner of the final lap of the season. In 2009 he looked his most mature in an uncompetitive car, under absolutely no pressure.

It would be remiss of us, amid all this reflection, not to acknowledge the outstanding entourage that trails in Hamilton’s wake at every race, and the consequences of this ‘megastar’ branding for his frame of mind. It is as significant as it is distasteful the fact that many drivers in the midfield receive far less air time than Nicole Scherzinger. Off-track distractions are worth of a separate article in their own right, but what matters most is the driving of the car .

On-track, Hamilton may often be the man of the moment, but he seems not to have learned a thing since his first day in the sport and his inconsistency over a season has always cost him. Give McLaren the dominant car next year and Button will win the title at a canter.

While the 2011 championship may be sewn up, the preparation for next year should make for an intriguing final few races. Hamilton will be looking for his form to bottom-out and pick up again sooner rather than later, but for now he continues to plummet.