Lewis Hamilton. The Loneliest Man in Brazil

So Lewis Hamilton has one driver to worry about and that of course is Felipe Massa. Yes and no. Sure, all Hamilton has to do is finish in the top 5 to win the championship no matter what Massa does, but in reality Hamilton has much more to worry about than just Felipe Massa.

There is no doubt Hamilton will have last year’s Brazilian Grand Prix on his mind and there isn’t anything he can say to anyone to make me believe otherwise. It’s a mental game and it starts right there. He’s aggressive, hard on tires, and he throws his car around the track so much that trouble is always lurking just around the corner.

Lewis may be a likable guy off track and have a lot of friends there, but on track he’s probably the most lonely driver going. He’s got no friends on an F1 track and it may be his own fault. Kimi Raikkonen who will certainly be helping Massa is one of those non-friends. We all remember Canada and the famous rear-ender at the end of pit lane and in Japan when after Raikkonen got the best of him at the start, Hamilton ran him straight off the track.

The list of non-friends grows. Jarno Trulli and Mark Webber had some words about him in Japan. Something about being overly aggressive? We move on to Robert Kubica and Timo Glock who haven’t been shy about calling his tactics questionable at best. Then there’s Fernando Alonso and there’s not much I need to say there.

This is a personal race for every driver out there. Forget about the constructors championship for a moment and these guys want to go out in style, try to raise their value for next year and especially hold on to the position they already have or try and move up in the final standings. There’s a lot at stake here as I pointed out with Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld. Add the non-friends to what they want to achieve and there will be no favors for Hamilton.

There is one more group of non-friends. They will be sitting off track with their eyes and binoculars glued to Lewis just waiting on the edge of their seats ready to pounce on anything he does that may be questionable. They are of course the stewards who are probably his biggest enemy in tomorrows race.

If Lewis wins the title tomorrow he will have earned it through this race and this race alone because to me his season has been too unpredictable to say he earned it throughout the year.