Lewis Hamilton became possibly the most arrogant and outrageous sports star over the course of this Bank Holiday weekend. Hamilton has been in and out the headlines, for the right and wrong reasons, ever since he came onto the Formula One scene. He has been cited for numerous driving offences and even tax evasions in his short career that saw him win the World Driving Championship in 2008 at the age of 23. After winning the championship he decided to release an auto-biography which, at the age of 23, sounds like an absurd thing to do. He was then awarded an MBE in 2009 in the New Year's Honours list.
Since his World Championship win, Hamilton has become one of the most irritating figures in sport. His constant moaning when things don't go his way shows a spoilt attitude especially when he blamed the McLaren car for not being ready at the start of last season and again this season. However when Hamilton won the Chinese Grand Prix this year, he quickly changed his mind on the readiness of the McLaren car and suddenly the car was now able to win Championships.
This weekend was the Monaco Grand Prix and it served its usual dose of drama but it also highlighted the prima-donna attitude of Lewis Hamilton. During the third stage of qualifying, Hamilton was setting out on his first lap, which coincided with the crash of Perez, he had Felipe Massa ahead of him but he wasn't causing Hamilton to slow down. As there are limited obvious passing places, Massa waited a few corners before letting Hamilton pass and although Hamilton still hadn't been forced to slow down, he threw his hand up in the air in annoyance to Massa.
It got worse on race day as Hamilton caused two crashes during the race. The first was a collision with Massa as Hamilton tried to under-cut the Ferrari by going through a kerb:
Paul Di Resta did the same sort of manoeuvre a few laps earlier on Sebastien Buemi and was duly given a drive through penalty. The stewards shown consistency by also giving Hamilton a drive through penalty, much to Hamilton's disgust. A few corners later Hamilton over-took Massa in the tunnel, causing Massa to go onto the dirty side of the track and ultimately crash into the barrier. If that wasn't enough for Hamilton, he decided to go one better and cause Maldonado to crash just two laps after the red flag. Again Hamilton ignored the kerb before sailing into Maldonado and causing the Williams car to go into the barrier:
After the race, the stewards again duly awarded Hamilton with a penalty. This time it was a twenty second penalty but it didn't actually change the race result. For some reason Hamilton thought it unfit to be brandished yet another penalty and decided that the stewards were ganging up on him. What was worse was that Hamilton then decided to play the race card and claimed that the stewards were ganging up on him because 'he is black'. Not only is this an outrageous statement to make, it could land many people in hot water. Since his outburst he has now threatened to quit Formula One which, after this weekend's antics, will not be a huge miss as no-one likes seeing an over-paid sports star acting like a spoilt kid especially when he clearly caused both of those avoidable collisions. But, unfortunately, everyone knows it is an empty threat before he calms himself down and just gets on with racing again. Please just grow up.
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