A bad day for media hype
July 10th 2007 13:19. Updated: July 11th 2007 01:29
I think Sunday was quite a bad day for media hype. A good thing, I’m sure you’ll agree.
First of all there was Jamie Murray’s victory at Wimbledon, which I find absolutely hilarious. It certainly puts the past two years of hype surrounding Andrew Murray to shame a bit. Of all the people who could usurp saintly young tennis genius media darling Andrew Murray, it would be his brother who has not received even a fraction of the attention. Well done MSM!
Then of course, there was the British Grand Prix, where Lewis Hamilton put in a frankly lacklustre performance. It was by far his worst of the year, which is also absolutely hilarious because the media was getting into a frenzy over the prospect of a Brit winning the British Grand Prix. Ha ha!
My favourite part of the British Grand Prix coverage was actually just before the race started. The usually bearable Martin Brundle had fallen into the Lewis lovey-dovey-vortex. “There is a massive crowd here at Silverstone,” he said, “and they are all hoping for a…” Just in time, a man with a Spanish flag stood up to dominate the camera shot. Brundle battled on. “Errr. Err. Man with a Spanish flag there. Brave man.” Hahahah!
Of course, Hamilton’s poor showing at the British Grand Prix could not possibly have had anything to do with Hamilton himself. The media were already making his excuses for him — even before the race was finished. After the race, ITV pundit Mark Blundell was adamant that Hamilton must have had a problem with his car.
Well, I have not heard anything about what this problem with his car is — probably because it didn’t exist. That was just the media trying to cover its sorry arse.
There probably was an issue with the set up of the car. But guess whose job it is to set up the car? That’s right, Lewis Hamilton’s. Fernando Alonso didn’t have any trouble setting up his car, did he?
We have also seen that Lewis Hamilton does crack under pressure. To be honest, the fact that he could stick to the racing line when he was put under pressure by, say, Alonso, was the most impressive thing about Hamilton. Alonso could have stripped naked and Hamilton wouldn’t have batted an eyelid.
Not so at the British Grand Prix, where Hamilton got so wound up that he ended up trying to leave the pits far too early. He managed to stop before causing an Albers-esque situation, but he was close to doing that. (Incidentally, Albers has lost his job — but it’s nothing to do with the pitlane incident, oh no!)
The media’s story is that Hamilton had lightning-quick reactions to stop his car before anything worse happened. But the point is that he shouldn’t have had his car moving in the first place!
The rest of Hamilton’s race wasn’t much better, and once again he had a fair bit of good luck on his side. If Felipe Massa hadn’t stalled his engine and had to start from the pitlane, there is no way Hamilton would have finished on the podium. Imagine that. The first time he would have failed to get on the podium. Golden boy Lewis had his worst race at the British Grand Prix!
Hamilton still has an intimidating lead in the Drivers’ Championship. But all of his main rivals — Fernando Alonso, Kimi Räikkönen and Felipe Massa — have had more than their fair share of bad luck. The second half of the season will be much more difficult for Hamilton. It will be very interesting to see how he copes with the pressure from now on.






#1 sidepodcast.com
July 10th 2007 13:47
i think you’re right. after his pit-lane incident, lewis looked out of sorts for the rest of the race. embarrassed almost. could be downhill from here.
#2 Fun F1
July 10th 2007 23:36
I forgot that they tried to put a good spin on him messing up the pit stop!
If Lewis walked away from an accident I wouldn’t be surprised to hear James Allen say something like “Hamilton’s amazing driving skills meant he was able to avoid injury.” And of course the car would be blamed for the accident before anything was proven of course
#3 peterg
July 11th 2007 07:31
I’ve become harden to the hype that this young, talented, still F1 inexperienced driver gets lumped with. He has done everything that could be expected of a new hot shoe thrown into the deep end of F1 in a front row team. He has but “9″ races under the belt - still has not performed the inevitable, forgivable rookie thump into the Armco - & already he is being burdened with the weight of expectations that a seasoned campaigner like Nigel M had to bare.
Luckily the kid seems to have a very level head on his shoulders & may be able to stay above it, if you listen to the MSM he dropped the ball at the Brit GP. Apparently nothing but perfection is what he is meant to deliver. Has anybody stopped to consider that every recent F1 champ Schui, Mika, Alonso got to serve a apprenticeship with a Minardi, first year Jordan, struggling Lotus etc. My God! Senna spent a year learning the ropes in a Toleman, but no Lewis must win every race & the Championship in his debut year.
I hope Lewis just keeps his head down & delivering what he has been doing. I for one won’t be reading the rubbish that is written about him.
Particularly when he makes his first mistake….he is human after all.
#4 Andy
July 11th 2007 09:03
Totally agree - I was getting sick of the whole Hamilton adoration before the race. I had to record it, and was able to fast-forward 10 minutes and they were still talking about Lewis.
Brundle’s flag moment was worthy of the legendary Murray in him saying the wrong thing at absolutely the wrong time. At least Murray, while being very biased towards the british drivers, would divert the commentary to the other drivers in the field from time to time.
To be fair, Lewis’ qualifying lap was incredible (even if we only got to see the last 2 corners of it), but I wonder how fast Raikkonen would have been had he not run out of kerb at the end of Woodcote.
#5 Rhys
July 11th 2007 13:57
The media is a dangerous beast, though I’m waiting for the day that a suicide bomber born in Surrey gets thwarted by an illegal immigrant from Poland. Should be interesting to see what happens then…