We marched in silence, fast, and in step, and we ducked through the FIA scrutineering garage into the pit lane instead of braving the paddock, which was already thronged with TV crews and journalists awaiting the hooning miscreant’s appearance. When we arrived at the McLaren garage we darted through it and out into the paddock, where the crowd of media folk ready to enjoy their feeding frenzy was dense and excitable. Nonetheless we pushed through it, we entered our paddock hospitality unit, and I deposited Lewis in his private room within it. He had not uttered a word.
Satisfied that Lewis was in a safe place, albeit not in a happy one from an emotional point of view, I went back out into the paddock and advised the journalists and TV crews to disperse, telling them all that Hamilton had not been arrested, so they should not use that word in their reporting; that he had not been speeding, so they should not suggest that he had been; and that hopefully he would qualify in the top three, which would enable them to question him in the post-qualifying TV pen and FIA press conference. However, to be honest, I was buying time, for I still felt pretty sure that he would balls-up quali.
Bishop leads Hamilton through the paddock, following the McLaren driver’s police encounter
Ker Robertson/Getty Images
I was right. Hamilton was fourth-quickest in Q1, behind only Vettel, Rosberg, and Button, but in Q2 he messed up his best lap in its third sector, as a result of which error he ended up only 11th-fastest, and consequently ineligible to contest Q3. In Q3 Vettel took the pole, and Button was fourth.
Nice guy though Jenson was and is – and a driver whose speed, skill, and wisdom were and are often underrated in my opinion – he always seemed to respond well whenever misfortune descended on the side of our garage adjacent to his. That is not a criticism of him. Indeed it is the opposite. He was always able to turn negatives for his team-mates into positives for himself, and so it was in Melbourne in 2010. While he was doing his post-qualifying media duties, all smiles, I arranged for Lewis to speak to a few friendly reporters about the events of the previous evening, during which interviews he was judicious enough to heed my comms/PR counsel by saying that he was sorry for his actions. Late that night, exhausted, I met Angel in a Collingwood pub, and I told him that I thought Jenson would do well the following afternoon.
Hamilton talks to the press after qualifying as Bishop watches on in the background
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What happened in Sunday’s race was emblematic of the contrasting characters of the two McLaren drivers in those days. On a damp track, after an early safety car deployment, Hamilton restarted well, scrambling up the field from his lowly grid position to seventh on lap five, just behind Button, who had been running around conservatively in sixth. On the next lap Hamilton passed Button and set off after Rosberg. A dry line had now appeared and on lap seven Button stopped for slicks, the first of the front-runners to do so. Soon afterwards everyone followed suit.
As wily in such conditions as ever, Jenson had timed his tyre stop perfectly, and by lap 11 he was in second place, only a couple of car lengths in arrears of the leader, Vettel. Hamilton was seventh, just behind Vettel’s Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber, whom he overtook on lap 15. Six laps later he passed Massa, lifting himself to fifth, and five laps farther on he elbowed his way past Rosberg, too. Vettel retired with brake trouble on that lap, promoting Hamilton to third. Now Lewis appeared to be getting excited, or angry, or both, for he was becoming vocal on the radio, complaining of tyre degradation and berating our engineers, describing the race strategy they had devised for him as “a frickin’ terrible idea”. He made a second tyre stop on lap 34, allowing both Ferraris to pass him, which dropped him to fifth, just ahead of Webber, who began to challenge him aggressively. In the end their battle became too wild, sending them both into a gravel trap on lap 55. Hamilton recovered to finish sixth, while Webber ended up ninth, earning himself a reprimand from the race stewards for his trouble. Who won the race? Jenson, scoring his first victory for McLaren, as serene as you like.
Clash with Webber later in the race meant that there was no positive ending to Australian GP weekend for Hamilton
Getty Images
Five months later, in August, Hamilton was represented in a Melbourne court by an Australian barrister, Sandip Mukerjea, who pleaded guilty on his client’s behalf to the charge of “improper use of a motor vehicle”. Since it had been a first offence, Lewis avoided a conviction, but he was ordered to pay a fine of A$500 (about £285 in those days). McLaren’s chief legal officer Tim Murnane and I had drafted a statement for him, which Mukerjea read out in court, as follows: “I very much regret my momentary lapse of judgment. I accepted responsibility in reply to the police officers who first questioned me, and I confirmed that I was aware that what I had done was wrong. I apologised publicly at the time, and I unhesitatingly repeat that apology to the court now. I fully accept that I am a public figure, and I understand that I have a duty to act as a role model to youngsters, particularly in relation to road safety matters. The publicity caused by the incident was immense, and that in itself has been a form of punishment for me.”
I love Australia, really I do. Indeed, Melbourne is one of my favourite cities. But, now, looking back on ‘hoon-gate’ after the passing of 15 years, it really does feel like a bit of a storm in a teacup. Heaven knows what two 21st-century Victoria Police officers would have said and done if they had ever witnessed the way in which the F1 stars of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s used to drive road cars. We did not call that kind of thing hooning back then; indeed the term did not yet exist in a motoring context; but you can be well sure that burn-outs were frequent, deliberately breaking traction was de rigueur, improper use of motor vehicles was a daily occurrence, and a speed of 15mph was routinely exceeded by an order of magnitude even in built-up areas. I am not condoning that kind of behaviour, but neither do I find that I have the heart to condemn it. Suffice it to say that it belongs in the past, and the past is another country.
As for Lewis, I reckon that what he did on Fitzroy Street 15 years ago was silly at worst, and I am pretty sure that most of you who are reading these words will agree with me. Oh and, finally, here is a beguiling ‘anorak fact’: soon after the dust had settled on ‘hoon-gate’, and the media reporting of it had abated, the AMG Merc C63 concerned was sold for A$157,000 (about £89,500 in those days), which was a decent chunk above its market value. I wonder who owns it now, and whether he, she, or they are aware of its remarkable history?