Lewia Hamilton and the Lack of Proper Management

In Autocourse 2007-2008, the most important F1 annual, there is a great small photograph in which the two most successful current Britsh GP drivers’ dads standing against each other. On the left hand side John, Jenson Button’s father, looks jovial, smiling his face staring at an non-specific object in the sky; on the right handside is Anthony Hamilotn watching at Mr. Button’s smile in amazement, bewilderment maybe terrified from what on might have assume is dilettantish behaviour while he is very focused on his mission that of course is not seen it the photograph. There is probably no better description of the careers or their two sons in F1. Button’s 10 years on the tour with minimal success while the younger is a world champion in only his second attempt. What this visual is telling is that Button Sr. is a journeyman enjoying the lavish lifestyle his son’s talents brought him while Hamilton Sr. is his son’s manager occupied and troubled with all the problems fame can bestow on a man.

Hamilotn’s and Button’s careers have moved in very different routes which reflect the collective sum of the talents, management, opportunities and decisions that were taken by each of them or their management. Button is managed by a professional non family member while Hamilton is managed by his closest family member, his dad. During his career either Button or his agent has taken quite a few crucial decisions, most of them proved to be the wrong ones and led him into blind alleys while Hamilton has taken good decisions that turned him into a world champion and a millionaire much faster than any other driver in the history of F1 as well as making him the sport’s youngest champion ever.

It will be a mistake not to attribute management decisions to the two drivers’ careers’ milestones and while there is nothing unique in Button’s management arrangement it looks now that the Hamilton management way came unstuck. It may have worked out in lower categories and during his first two years the F1 however it is not sustainable as the last few weeks are showing us. The lack of professional management on Anthony Hamilton’s side combined with inevitable emotional involvement lead the Hamiltons into a dead end. True they have won the World Championship but the relationships that the have developed within the F1 paddock with either the McLaren team and or their peers were unsustainable and were the reason why they couldn’t stop that small matter of not telling truth to the stewards from becoming such a big story.

Anthony Hamilton’s biggest mistake so far was his appeal to Max Mosley the FIA president to help his son. After that appeal Lewis has been given the FIA media Centre to apologize on the FIA terms and distance himself from McLaren in time of trouble and even make it situation more difficult for the team.

That behaviour might prove to be the undoing of Hamilton since I find it hard to imagine which team owner would like to employ a driver who will turn to the FIA president or his most resolved opponents in order to solve his problems with his employers. That is unacceptable behaviour and Hamilton from now on will be a persona non grata in the motorhomes and around the paddock. Who knows what McLaren information he might now convey to the authorities?

That situation had been arisen mainly because lack of proper management from Hamilton’s side as well as from McLaren’s. In Hamilton’s first F1 season McLaren became involved in the Spygate affair though Hamilton was not blamed for any wrongdoing. However during that rookie season he has his own personal battle with Fernando Alonso and in a few cases he did not obey team orders and he and his father caused his team to be dragged in front of the FIA WMSC and stewards of meetings. Ron Dennis, McLaren team principal at the time, and the man who ascribes to himself Hamilton’s quick rise, did not show the proper leadership properties and allowed Hamilton escape any faulty behaviour without even the slightest remark. That was a very bad education session for a sportsman who wanted to win every trophy possible in his first season and ended with a huge disappointment.

Dennis, who has retired as team principal as of the beginning of the 2009 season, did so while his protégé is a world champion, however it was a title which was achieved in the penultimate corner of the last lap of the season’s last race – so it was pure luck. It was Dennis’s only title in the last 10 seasons, not the best of achievement for an organization’s manager which is supported by the might of Daimler and invested hundreds of millions of pounds in his racing team every year.

In order for Hamilton’s career to take a positive turn he has to change and that something is not the team. Hamilton must look for a professional management and cut out his father from his managerial role so next time Anthony meets John, Button’s father, in the paddock they will able to share a joke.