At the 2021 Abu Dhabi GP, defending and 7x champion Lewis Hamilton entered the race tied with Max Verstappen at 369.5 points. The race could have gone anyone’s way because of the quality and class the two arch-rivals displayed throughout the season. However, Lewis Hamilton led most part of the race, but an unfortunate crash of Nicolas Latifi changed the course of history to tip the scales in Verstappen’s favor. A last-minute safety car was deployed but shockingly the race control (led by Michael Masi, the then-race director) decided to make it the showdown of the century. They opted to restart the race on the last lap, and Verstappen easily overtook Hamilton on fresh tires. It wasn’t easy on Hamilton who, until the last lap, was destined to become the 8x champion. How did he cope with it? We will answer that via the latest update, but let us first look at what Lewis said about it.
“Was I robbed? Obviously” Lewis Hamilton on the 2021 Abu Dhabi showdown
Six months ago, I interviewed ex-F1 driver, Perry McCarthy, and asked him what he felt about the 2021 Abu Dhabi result and Michael Masi’s unfortunate “human error” that robbed Hamilton of unprecedented greatness, he said the whole F1 world except Red Bull feels he was. Interestingly, Lewis expressed the same and also explained how his father’s upbringing came in handy when his world came crashing down.
The controversial choices made by race control at the time still feel sour to Hamilton. He feels robbed of his eighth-world title. “Was I robbed? Obviously. I mean, you know the story. But I think what was really beautiful in that moment, was my dad was with me. And we’d gone through this huge roller coaster of life together, ups and downs. And the day that it hurt the most, he was there.”
He added, “The way Hamilton dealt with his loss at that moment has been decisive for a lot of things, he tells himself. “The way he raised me was to always stand up, and keep your head high. And I obviously went to congratulate Max, and not realizing the impact that that would have, but also I was really conscious of, like, there’s a mini-me watching. This is the defining moment of my life. And I think it really was. I felt it. I didn’t know how it was going to be perceived. I hadn’t, like, visualized it. But I was definitely conscious of: These next 50 meters that I walk is where I fall to the ground and die—or I rise up.”
“saved my life”: Lewis Hamilton names key ingredient that helped him cope
In 2018, Hamilton partied in New York to celebrate his first collection then flew to Singapore and delivered the best lap of his glorious career. He faced everyone, including the late Niki Lauda‘s (triple F1 world champion and senior advisor at Mercedes) displeasure at his “other ventures”. But Lewis never backed down. He only grew stronger in his expression of his love for fashion and his prowess on track. After that race, he won 3 championships. But when he couldn’t win the fourth one, he came back to creativity to keep himself sane and afloat, or so we think.
Talking about his love for creativity and how it saved his life, Lewis said, “Going on this kind of creative journey outside of racing, I think it’s been key to finding myself. It enables me to come in work much happier, feeling much more fulfilled. Venturing out and discovering these [creative] outlets have been really key to kind of, I think honestly, they’ve saved my life.”
Lewis and his alter ego XNDA are always in and out of the creativity world. From fashion to music to any form of artistic expression is always something Lewis comes back to and nails it better than the professionals. Which creative detour of his has been your favorite so far?