Formula One news
'I came out of it stronger' - Hamilton on 2009
08 November 2009After heading into the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in March as reigning Champion, Lewis Hamilton was unable to challenge the rest for race wins in the opening rounds of 2009 before a dramatic recovery by McLaren allowed for two victories. The Englishman admits that a lot has been learned from the highs and lows.
 |
|
"On the track, one of my biggest highlights was in Germany, when we tried the upgrade package for the first time," the Stevenage man said. "Before I'd even driven the car, you could see that it was a big step - we'd completely changed the front wing, the top body and the floor and there was a lot of pressure for it to be right - and it looked good, the car looked fantastic.
"It only took me a few laps to realise that the car was an incredible improvement. Finally, after months of struggling, I could finally get the car to do what I wanted: I could get it turned in properly and get hard on the power and just rely on the grip to get me out of a corner. Coming out of the Nürburgring hairpin and heading uphill into the fast Esses, I accidentally left my radio switched on and the whole team could hear me yelling and screaming because the car felt so good!
 |
| The lowest low: Malaysia |
"I felt a bit embarrassed afterwards, especially when Martin told me he'd played the recording back to the whole team(!), but I can see now that that was important for everyone's morale.
"The other highlight was winning in Hungary. I'd always said that winning a race this year was going to feel sweeter than anything else we'd achieved, just because it would be such a satisfying conclusion to all our hard work; the Hungarian Grand Prix was just a dream come true - to be able to measure my pace over the others and to get the car home first was just unbelievable, total satisfaction…"
 |
| The highest high: Hungary |
As always in motor racing, though, Hamilton's 2009 season brought with it a mix of emotions, with the troubles off-track at the start of the year being the worse. "There were a few," he continued. "The first difficulty we faced this year was during testing: we knew the car wasn't the fastest but, at the Barcelona test in Week 11, it became really clear to us that we were struggling and we just didn't have the pace of the front-runners - I remember phoning Ron (Dennis) and Martin (Whitmarsh) and explaining to them that we had a lot of work ahead of us if we were going to turn the MP4-24 into a race winner.
 |
|
"That was a difficult call but Ron and Martin gave me their full support and we actually started to look at a rescue plan immediately - there was no waiting - so what was a difficult experience at first actually turned into a positive one.
"The other tough moments happened not long after, in Melbourne and Malaysia, and that was a difficult time for me personally but I strongly believe that I used that experience to grow as a person and to become stronger through it. I'm a firm believer that every experience you have - even the bad ones - help to define and build your character; you can't change the past but you can definitely learn from it and I overcame that situation in Melbourne, I had the courage and conviction to man up about it in Malaysia and, ultimately, I came out of it stronger."
more news
- 20 Nov.
- 19 Nov.
- 18 Nov.
- 17 Nov.
Homepage
Jerez