Wednesday, December 15, 2021
Hamilton beaten again
Prince Charles ennobles Formula 1 icon Sir Lewis
The great defeat in Abu Dhabi was followed by the great moment in Windsor Castle. Prince Charles raises Lewis Hamilton to the nobility. After that, the Formula 1 star is silent about a possible protest by his team against the rating of the last World Cup race. It remains exciting.
“Get up, Sir Lewis,” said Prince Charles at the end. And then there he stood, Sir Lewis Hamilton, raised in poor circumstances, just knighted by the British heir to the throne in a splendid hall at Windsor Castle. Hamilton beamed. And in the background his mother Carmen proudly watched as her son was raised to the nobility.
Hamilton has already won seven Formula 1 world championships, and an eighth was almost added – but this title will really last forever. Three days after his dramatic defeat in the battle for the PS crown against Max Verstappen, Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth II’s eldest son, made Hamilton a final knight. After Jackie Stewart, Stirling Moss and Jack Brabham, Hamilton is only the fourth racing driver to receive this honor. The Mercedes driver chatted briefly with the Prince of Wales at the festive ceremony and then proudly posed with his medal.
After Hamilton won his seventh world title last year and thus drawn level with record world champion Michael Schumacher, Buckingham Palace announced in December 2020 that the 36-year-old would be knighted. The ceremony then had to be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Mercedes remains silent
Hamilton was named a member of the “Order of the British Empire” by the Queen in 2009 after his first World Cup victory (2008) – in a sense a preliminary step to becoming a knight. After winning the fourth title, Hamilton joked: “If I were a knight, I would force everyone to call me Sir. To my friends, I would say, ‘Sorry, it’s Sir Lewis.'”
Hamilton did not speak to the press after the ceremony. And his racing team continues to be silent. Mercedes has not yet decided whether to appeal formally against the rejected protest from the season finale in Abu Dhabi. The deadline for this is late Thursday evening. In theory, Hamilton could still be awarded an eighth World Cup title at the Green Table.
Should Mercedes decide to officially appeal, the case will be heard by the FIA appeals court in Paris. The decision about the world champion of 2021 would then only be made in 2022. And: Even after a verdict by the appellate court, the case does not have to be closed. Mercedes and Red Bull would then still be able to go to the CAS International Sports Court in Lausanne.