Daily Archives: December 3, 2014

Two Time – Lewis Hamilton

Today’s blog will attempt to put Lewis Hamilton’s 2014 World Championship win into perspective.

The 2014 season was of course dominated by the Mercedes AMG F1 team for which Lewis drives with team mate Nico Rosberg.

Lewis Hamilton, MercedesAMGF1

Photo courtesy Mercedes AMG F1.

During the season the Mercedes AMG F1 team qualified on pole 18 out of 19 times; Nico started from pole 11 times compared to Lewis’s 6, with Felipe Massa in the Mercedes powered Martini Williams being the only man to break the Mercedes Benz AMG F1 pole monopoly when he qualified on pole for the Austrian Grand Prix.

Mercedes Benz AMG F1 drivers also recorded 13 fastest race laps 7 of which were recorded by Lewis and 6 by Nico. The remaining fastest laps were recorded by Kimi Räikkönen driving a Ferrari, Felipe and team mate Vallteri Bottas driving for Martini Williams, Sergio Perez driving a
for Force India and Daniel Riccardo driving for Red Bull.

Lewis and Nico also won 16 of the 19 2014 Formula One season races; 11 to Lewis, 5 to Nico and 3 to Daniel Riccardo.

Lewis became the 16th multiple Formula One World Champion and the fourth Britain to do so after Graham Hill ’62/’68, Jim Clark ’63/’65 and Jackie Stewart ’69/’71/’73.

The 2014 constructors championship was won by Mercedes Benz for the first time, there were no championships for constructors in 1954 and 1955 when Juan Manuel Fangio won two drivers championships driving for the Mercedes Benz team.

Mika Häkkinen drove Mercedes powered McLaren’s to consecutive drivers championships in 1998/’99 as did Lewis his to his first championship in 2008. McLaren won the constructors championship in 1998, so Mercedes motors have now powered three world drivers champions to six drivers championships, but just two constructors championships.

An interesting aside is that Mercedes Benz bought out the 2009 Constructors champions Brawn GP at the end of 2009 and there is a paper trail at Companies House which links Brawn GP through the Honda Racing F1 Team and British American Racing to the Tyrrell Racing Organisation founded on the 9th of January 1964 with the company number 00787446.

Therefore over the last fifty years the legal entities registered under Company Number 00787446 lay claim to; the 1969 World Drivers and Constructors championships won by Jackie Stewart run by Tyrrell Racing Organisation under the Matra International banner, the ’71 Driver and Constructors Championships won by Jackie running under the Tyrrell Racing Organisation name as was Jackie’s final Drivers title in ’73, the 2009 World Drivers and Constructors titles won by Jenson Button and Brawn GP and now Lewis Hamilton’s and Mercedes Benz AMG F1’s drivers and constructors championships making five drivers championships and four constructors championships in all.

Thanks for joining me on this ‘Two Time’ edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a life times love affair with racing from New Jersey. Don’t forget to come back now !

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