Lewis Hamilton, as good as Ayrton Senna

Not even the Texan thunderstorms could rain on Lewis Hamilton’s parade. After torrential rainfall from hurricane Patricia prevented track action for most of the weekend, the weather cleared in time for Sunday afternoon’s United States Grand Prix.
With the fury of the heavens spent, it was Hamilton who stormed through like the unstoppable force he has been all season in a silver and teal blur to win his third world championship—keeping his date with the destiny he had mapped out for himself.

Emulating Ayrton Senna—that was the goal Hamilton had set himself when he first began karting seriously aged eight. An ardent admirer of the Brazilian, he would sit in front of the television after school in his council estate lodgings in Stevenage, watching video tapes of his idol’s Formula One victories, dreaming of one day doing the same.

“He’s always been my favourite driver,” Hamilton said at last year’s Singapore Grand Prix. “I think ultimately everyone would love to be like Ayrton. He was in a perfect era, in a perfect time where his whole heart and passion and charisma came out in such a nice way. And I think if any driver told you they wouldn’t want to be like Ayrton or seem like that in the years to come would be lying to you.”

Michael Schumacher moved the goalposts by winning seven titles. Juan Manuel Fangio had won five back in the 1950s. Senna’s great rival Alain Prost and even Sebastian Vettel had won four.

But Senna had won three drivers’ championships when his career was tragically cut short and three titles had always been Hamilton’s aim.

“As I said, it (the goal) was always to get the three that Ayrton had,” Hamilton said after the race on Sunday. “Of course, he wasn’t from the same country as me but he was the guy that inspired me as a youngster.” That Hamilton would equal Senna’s haul of championships this year has been all too evident from early on in the season. He has been utterly dominant this year and Sunday’s win was his 10th from 16 races. He has certainly had an easier time of it—if winning a championship can ever be easy—compared to last season, when he ended a sixyear title drought after fighting a bitter season-long duel with former childhood friend Nico Rosberg in a campaign riddled with setbacks.

The manner of that victory has given him the confidence to unleash the full force of his devastating talent and Hamilton by his own admission is driving better than he ever has. “I’m 30 now, I’ve been racing for 22 years, I’d like to think this has been my best year because I’ve been learning for all those years,” Hamilton told reporters ahead of this year’s Singapore Grand Prix.

“But generally I really do feel like I’ve been making... tiny steps forward to improve, I do feel like I’m driving to the best of my ability and that’s my goal, everyday, is to live to the maximum of my potential.”

So where does Hamilton go from here? He has not only equalled Senna’s haul of titles but surpassed his haul of Grand Prix wins too. Having achieved what he set out to do, he has nothing left to prove and nobody left to look up to. Perhaps now free from the pressures of achieving what he set himself, he gets even better and continues to dominate until entropy inevitably sets in.

Or perhaps Ferrari continue to make inroads into Mercedes advantage as they have this year and the next phase of Hamilton’s career is marked by a blazing, no-holdsbarred rivalry with Sebastian Vettel, who also surpassed Senna’s victory tally this year and has 42 wins to Hamilton’s 43.

The banter between the two, the most successful drivers of recent years, that has characterised the post-race press conferences over recent races certainly suggests that as out and out racers both would like nothing better. Whatever comes next, his hunger will certainly not be dulled simply because he has achieved the goals he set himself.