Lewis Hamilton opens up on record-breaking season in Formula One

Gulf News

Video credit: Crowdstrike   Seven-time world F1 champion Lewis Hamilton reflects on sensational campaign with Mercedes  Read the full story here: https://bit.ly/3890f51  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  #LewisHamilton #FormulaOne

Transcript

00:00The failures really, really are what build character.

00:04You know, there's a saying, it's not how you fall, it's how you get back up.

00:11It's been a remarkable journey with this team,

00:14and I think what we've achieved is just, it's mind-blowing.

00:17And it's going to take some time, I think, still,

00:19it's going to take months for it to properly sink in,

00:22usually is the case, because we just continue to move on

00:26to trying to raise the bar and focus on what's next.

00:31But I'm really proud of everyone and incredibly honoured

00:34and grateful to be a part of this journey.

00:43You know, I'd been with McLaren since I was 13, so, you know, it was my family

00:49and I was very safe there.

00:51But I think, you know, McLaren had this amazing history,

00:56they'd had multiple championships, they were super successful.

01:00And I felt that I wasn't necessarily helping build something.

01:07It was already an illustrious team, it already had all that success,

01:10it had the biggest cabinet of trophies.

01:13And I wanted to go somewhere where I could help,

01:16I could be a part of building something.

01:19You know, when I joined this team, it didn't have many trophies in the cabinet.

01:23You know, it was on the way up, it was growing, it was building,

01:27there was more people coming.

01:28And I was like, I want to go somewhere and see if I can utilise

01:33everything I've learnt on all these years, the privilege of working at McLaren.

01:37Can I apply that, those learnings to a team that's not

01:42being very successful to becoming successful?

01:46And that for me, for sure, it was a risk.

01:51For sure, there was moments I was like,

01:52jeez, I don't know when I'm going to win again.

01:53I had to really analyse a lot of the pros and cons.

01:56But for me, taking the risk, I mean, if you're not going for a gap,

02:01you're not, you know what Senna used to say,

02:03if you're not going for a gap, you're no longer a racing driver.

02:06I think if you're not taking risks in life, then you're standing still.

02:09And so I could have stayed there.

02:12I mean, in hindsight, you look at if I had stayed,

02:15I wouldn't have another championship to my name.

02:19I would still have, I would still be one time world champion after 14 years.

02:26So, you know, things happen for a reason, one way or another.

02:30I'm really, really grateful that I took that step.

02:33I took that leap of faith.

02:38Probably losing my first world championship in 2007.

02:43Leading the race in China to then putting it in the, you know,

02:48in the gravel and not being, you know, losing.

02:50And then the following domino effect of losing the world championship after that.

02:56That was a really, really hard one to to swallow.

03:00And I think it was I took it very, very personal for a long period of time

03:04and didn't really know how to digest it.

03:06It's such a shock to the system.

03:08But I think the failures really, really are what build character.

03:15You know, there's a saying, it's not how you fall, it's how you get back up.

03:18I'm so grateful that it happened.

03:20Whilst, of course, I'd love to have that world championship.

03:23I think I was able to turn that negativity and turn it into a positive.

03:29And naturally, the lessons from the actual race, but more so the repercussions

03:33and then the emotion and the kind of the turmoil that you can go through.

03:37Learning about myself, just, you know, how I deal with failure.

03:40And I think probably from that and maybe someone's

03:46after that is learning that you can't change what's just happened.

03:50Yes, you might not be happy with it, but all you can do is change

03:54what's ahead of you or try to shape what's ahead of you.

03:57So now when I have failures, it doesn't take me.

04:00I'm not stuck in my hotel room for three days,

04:03not being able to deal with it, not knowing I'm

04:06able to move on straight away.

04:08I think I just I had to really just continue to keep my head down,

04:11keep not giving up and believing

04:15and trusting in myself.

04:21And when I joined this team, everyone said,

04:23this is the worst decision I could ever make.

04:25Your career is over and we've just won seven world titles.

04:29So, yeah, I think me growing up, I think naturally I started racing as a kid.

04:35So all I could think of was having fun, enjoying myself.

04:39But as I got signed when I was 13 and I started to realize,

04:42you know, the work that needed that I needed to put in

04:47whilst doing whilst trying to finish school,

04:49but also delivering on each weekend and not taking it for granted.

04:52Yeah, particularly the beginning when my dad was working crazy.

04:56Of course, as a kid, as a 10 year old,

04:5913 year old, it was difficult to understand

05:02because I'd not been in the in the working world.

05:05It's difficult to understand how difficult it was for him,

05:07but I could see how stressful for it was for him when he would come home.

05:11I could see how tough it was wearing on the family

05:16from the little that we had from the weekends

05:19that there were weekends that we couldn't compete

05:21because we didn't have the money to race.

05:23So I could see that.

05:24And so I knew that when I did have the chance,

05:27I needed to knock it out of the park.

05:28And, you know, I didn't always do that, but I do more often nowadays.

05:35I think I've always been someone that has hated to lose,

05:40but I've somehow I don't know, I can't really explain how I've managed to find

05:46myself on the other side.

05:47So I love I love getting to the end of that race first.

05:51And and that the the happiness of that

05:55lasts a lot longer than it ever did before.

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