At the start of this race weekend in Miami, when suddenly everyone is discussing Lewis Hamilton’s piercings, necklaces and rings, he was playing golf. With Tom Brady, the dazzling football player. The meeting was a natural choice. That’s where the two most successful representatives of their respective sports meet to go a few holes together. And besides: If Formula 1 is in the USA, it is obvious that the racing drivers will meet all the other famous athletes who live in the wide country.
Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez threw a few baseballs at the Miami Marlins. Pierre Gasly made the acquaintance of basketball player Michael Jordan in a restaurant, with whom he was even allowed to talk (“by far the best experience of my life”), which in turn made his 21-year-old teammate Yuki Tsunoda jealous (“I’d like But he didn’t invite me”), on the other hand remarkably submissive: “Pierre has been in formula for five years longer. He deserves more to meet Michael Jordan. I have to deliver results first.”
The footballer Brady and the racing driver Hamilton share the experience of having already delivered the necessary results for a meeting with Jordan. Hamilton has won seven world championships and Brady has lifted seven Super Bowl trophies. “I want to get an eighth title,” said the 44-year-old American on the sidelines of the round of golf, and Hamilton, seven years his junior, replied: “I want that too.” Hach… always wonderful to see so much in common. And also exciting. Take a look at the differences.
Brady had announced the end of his career in February after a certainly very annoying defeat against the LA Rams, only to announce a few weeks later that he was still playing. Hamilton, on the other hand, had decided after the much more annoying experience at last season’s finale, when race director Michael Masi with his anarchic and curious safety car control had brought him out of the title on the last lap of a long season, decided to continue without first fake his resignation in real terms.
Great people in a good mood: Lewis Hamilton and Tom Brady.
(Photo: Hasan Bratic/dpa)
And so to the last difference: Brady has probably never heard a saying from the competition like Hamilton recently: “Maybe he should have stopped last year,” commented Helmut Marko maliciously, the sports advisor to Team Red Bull, after his protégé Max Verstappen lapped Hamilton in the previous race at Imola. Things aren’t going very well right now. On the track for Hamilton, off the track for Marko. And when the racing driver was asked to comment on the verbal attack from Team Red Bull in Miami on Friday, he replied pointedly: “I don’t listen to such stupid comments.”
There’s another caveat this Florida race weekend that Hamilton didn’t seem to hear until Friday afternoon. It is part of a debate that is now haunting him in times of various other difficulties: First of all, there is his racing car, which according to the comprehensive rule amendment this season is “undriveable” and “not worthy of a world champion”, and that because of aerodynamic problems bouncing up and down that “the drivers need an osteopath to get everything back in order,” as his team boss Toto Wolff admitted. Secondly, there is his 13-year-old teammate George Russell, who finished nine places ahead of him in Imola and who set the best time in Miami in the second practice session in a much-improved Silver Arrow. And now, thirdly, he is also threatened with legal difficulties from the racing authorities, which some may consider small-minded: Niels Wittich, Michael Masi’s successor since this season, is pushing for two age-old rules of Formula 1 to finally be enforced by all drivers be respected: No jewelry in the cockpit! And also no other underwear than fireproof!
Hamilton wears three watches on two arms, a chain, bracelets and eight rings and says: “I couldn’t have worn more jewelry today!”
Since 2005 there has been an entry in the regulations for both bans. But nobody had been interested in it until now. Until Wittich first pointed out the existing rule before the Australian Grand Prix like Kai aus Kiste and now announced in Miami that a transitional period had expired, that obedience was to be observed immediately, that all teams had to confirm that their drivers obeyed the rules “The wearing of jewelry in the form of piercings or necklaces made of metal is prohibited during the competition,” Wittich said in a statement.
Aware of the worsening of his situation, Hamilton apparently packed all the jewelry that had been flown to Florida with him, went to the press conference, and there he sat, blinking and glittering like the Queen once did when she was at the end of her coronation ceremony moved out of Westminster Abbey: A gigantic necklace, eight rings on her fingers, various piercings, plus bracelets and, watch out, a total of three (!) watches, spread over both arms. A message for Wittich? Ah, said Hamilton. The three watches are necessary for the management of the calls that would reach him in Miami from different time zones. But it really is, he admitted: “I couldn’t have worn more jewelry today!” Big laughs, of course.
And then he went into detail, some more than he would have liked. It’s about his personality, about showing who he is. And that’s how it is: “At least two” pieces of jewelry he can no longer take off, explained Hamilton: “And I can’t say where it is with one.” The jewelry is not a safety problem anyway. Even in the case of a nuclear spin tomography (MRI), he does not face any trouble, since the jewelry is made of platinum and “it’s not magnetic”.
There are “more important things” that Formula 1 should focus on, says Hamilton. “That’s very, very stupid.”
Wittich, a civil engineer from Erlensee near Frankfurt, had not only argued with MRI interference, but also with the fact that wearing jewelry during the competition “can make medical interventions as well as diagnosis and treatment more difficult”, “this should be after a accident may be necessary”. If the car catches fire, for example, the jewelry could heat up or even melt. Or get stuck somewhere and make it difficult to rescue the driver. The whole debate is “unnecessary”, says Hamilton. There are “more important things” that Formula 1 should focus on. “That’s very, very stupid.” He will seek a conversation with Mohammed Ahmed bin Sulayem, President of the world association Fia, on the subject: “I sent him a message.” And should he be legally defeated and sanctioned, that’s not a problem. “There’s a lot to do in this city anyway,” said Hamilton. “We have a replacement driver.”
Some colleagues in the paddock immediately showed solidarity with Hamilton. “It’s good that the Fia pays attention to our safety, but Lewis has had it for so long that it would be good to find compromises,” said Red Bull driver Sergio Perez. Sebastian Vettel dared a curious protest action that touched the art installation, so to speak: During training, he pulled gray boxer shorts over the green racing overalls, demonstratively violating the requirement to only wear fireproof underwear and said: “It’s unnecessary to inflate this issue. That feels like a personal thing aimed at Lewis.”
In the same practice session, Hamilton relented and removed whatever piercings he could remove. He was given special permission for that in his nose for this weekend and the following race in Barcelona. And he’s definitely had an experience he doesn’t share with quarterback Tom Brady.