The last time Hamilton left an F1 team: his emotional McLaren goodbye

When I had finished media-briefing Hamilton at Interlagos in 2012, I put back into my briefcase the print-outs from which we had been working, and I made to leave. “Wait a sec,” Lewis said. So I sat down again. I know more or less exactly what then passed between us, because I jotted it down in my notebook immediately afterwards.

“It’s been great,” he said. “These years have been great. Please let your guys know that. Steve [Cooper, who now works for Aston Martin], Silvia [Hoffer-Frangipane, who now works for Ferrari], all of them.”

“Thank you — and I agree,” I replied. “I’ll definitely pass that on to Steve, Silvia, and everyone else. Speaking personally, these five years have been the best years of my career. I’m sure they always will be. We’ve had some difficult times along the way, but overall it’s been mega.”

“Yeah,” he said, smiling, “but the difficult times were all ages ago.”

“Well, you’ve kept me on my toes a couple of times even this year,” I said, now smiling too.

“Have I? What do you mean?”

“Well, at Spa you tweeted what you thought at the time was Jenson’s on-track telemetry [in fact it had been test driver Oliver Turvey’s simulator telemetry], and at Suzuka you tweeted that you were disappointed to find out that Jenson had unfollowed you on Twitter [in fact Button had never followed Hamilton on Twitter].”

“Oh yeah, I guess so. But overall it’s been great.”

“It has indeed, absolutely fantastic in fact. It’s been a total privilege to work with you, Lewis, really.”

A short silence developed, which finally I broke. “I wish you luck at Mercedes, really I do, although obviously I hope we beat you. Would you ever consider coming back to McLaren, do you think?”

“Oh I don’t know. Maybe. Never say never. Anyway, I’ve got to go to my engineering meeting now.” And off he went, allowing me to jot down the notes that I have just reproduced above.

That weekend was a poignant one for many reasons. It would stage Michael Schumacher’s 306th and final F1 grand prix start. Even though his comeback career at Mercedes had been nowhere near as successful as his all-conquering Benetton/Ferrari magnum opus had been, and although he had been ruthless as well as brilliant throughout his career, I think everyone in F1 — drivers, team personnel, journalists, TV people, and of course fans — was acutely aware that the long Schumi era was finally about to come to an end, and that that realisation would confer on the weekend a special gravitas. It will be the same when Alonso and Hamilton finally hang up their F1 helmets, whenever that may be.

But, for us at McLaren, the emotion that weekend was all about Lewis. The team had been fined $100 million in 2007 — and, down but not out, he it had been who had spearheaded so brilliantly its 2008 renaissance, winning his first F1 drivers’ world championship with a passing manoeuvre on the last corner of the last lap of the last grand prix of that extraordinary F1 season, at Interlagos, the same circuit on which four years later he was about to race for us for the last time.

And, as I say, when it came to race day, he was leading, with just 17 of the 71 laps to go, when a coming-together with Hülkenberg ended his run. I was sitting in McLaren’s paddock hospitality unit at the time. When he finally appeared, head bowed, he did not stop to chat with any of us, but instead he walked briskly through us all, and off into his private changing room beyond. Often, in such circumstances, the best thing to do is to leave drivers be — for a short while at least. They can be very upset when a race win has just slipped through their fingers — volatile even. But, because it was the end — the very end, for I felt pretty sure that he would never race a McLaren again — and because he and I had spoken so candidly just three days before — on a whim I stood up, ambled over to his room, and knocked on the door. “Come in,” he said.

I opened the door, and there he was, his race overalls down around his waist, his torso uncovered. I had not prepared what I was going so say, so what I ended up saying was regrettably banal, for all I could think of was: “What can I say?”

“Nothing,” he replied, then he managed a half-hearted smile. He would absolutely love to have won for us that day, and with better luck he might well have done so. So he was disappointed, crestfallen, doleful even, and producing a broad grin was understandably not yet within his emotional compass.

Had I not interrupted him while he was getting changed, I would have hugged him, as indeed many of us hugged him when we said our final goodbyes later that evening. But, as a gay man a month shy of my 50th birthday, I figured that a half-naked straight man of 27 might not appreciate being hugged by me. So I walked towards him, I stopped a couple of metres short of him, and, suddenly feeling my eyes beginning to well-up, I stood in silence and I clapped him. After a while, still clapping, I managed to summon up some more words. “Thank you. Just thank you. Thank you for everything, Lewis,” I croaked, then I turned around, I walked out of his room, and I let him get changed in peace.