Rob Smedley, Felipe Massa’s former engineer at Ferrari, does not expect to see Lewis Hamilton emerge as a winner at the Scuderia next year. The Briton thinks that the current Mercedes F1 resident will be able to show humility.
“I don’t think Lewis will come in with that attitude. I think Lewis is a real professional.” Smedley explained on the Formula for Success podcast. “He knows how good Charles is, but he will give himself the means to beat him over 24 races.”
“I think he will beat him. I think there will be a time when he can’t do it anymore, but it’s definitely not now. The guy is so fit, he’s so mentally strong when he’s motivated.”
“I don’t want to talk about a lack of motivation, because that would be disrespectful to the guy, but I think we’ve seen, from time to time, some frustration that manifests itself in the fact that he doesn’t is not able to deliver at 10 tenths as he has done in the past.”
“But there is no doubt about this guy’s passion and his will to win. Look at his reaction after the British Grand Prix this year, it tells you all you need to know, don’t isn’t it?”
“He’s a guy who hasn’t won in years, and then he comes back and he wins, it was a masterclass for seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton on how to win a race. A very impressive. You saw the passion at the end, you saw the emotion.”
“This guy wants to win and, like any successful person in life, there is also a certain amount of humility that makes you wonder what you can do better. So I don’t think Lewis will go to Ferrari in thinking he’ll be able to beat Charles, because I’m not sure he can.”
Facing Smedley, David Coulthard explained that he has confidence in Hamilton’s ability to go for victories quickly: “I think Charles will be, on average, faster.”
“But I think there is a real chance that Lewis will have more wins until Charles is the end product of a world champion and he becomes that man who suddenly starts putting in those kinds of performances , year after year.”
“Performances that we saw in Lewis or Michael [Schumacher] or Ayrton [Senna]or whatever your favorite driver is. Or he’ll be what we think of as the guy who isn’t there, fast, brilliant to watch in qualifying, but making too many mistakes.”
According to Smedley, it is Ferrari who will benefit from this battle: “There’s also another point in this timeline trajectory, which is physiological. That’s when Lewis will start to slow down a little bit. And when that will be the case, we don’t know – it’s certainly not in the year or two.”
“Because if you look at how strong he is psychologically, how motivated he is, how fit he is physically, it’s not for right away. But isn’t that also a situation win-win for Ferrari?
“I don’t want to call him a young apprentice, but he will feel a very different dynamic and a very different relationship than he felt with Carlos Sainz, for example, where they were two peers, both at the same stage of their careers, or at very similar stages of their careers, and both needed to beat each other.”
“Charles has a bit of leeway here, doesn’t he? He’s facing a seven-time world champion. It’s a completely different situation, but it’s like Felipe Massa in 2006 against Michael Schumacher.”
“He was the apprentice, and it was normal for him to be beaten by Michael, and then, at the end of the year, he beat him on merit in qualifying – not in races, but he beat him in some races by chance.”
“I think we’re in a similar situation with Charles. If Charles isn’t the one who escapes, it’s a win-win situation, right? You have this seven-time world champion, a guy who can learn from him and possibly become a true champion himself.”
“At this point, Lewis is ready to retire and go out the left, and now you have this fully formed world champion who is going to be a winning machine.”
