Monday Morning Crew Chief
Written by Jonathan Ingram · June 18, 2007
Is Lewis Hamilton proving younger is better?
If life is faster these days, then shouldn’t our racing heroes arrive more quickly?
Lewis Hamilton may become the first driver to win the F1 title in his first season (outside of the inaugural running of the world championship in 1950 when everyone was a rookie).
Hamilton’s McLaren Mercedes team rival, Fernando Alonso, has already won two championships at a younger age than the previous youngest champion, Emerson Fittipaldi.
The NASCAR driver who generated the most stories at Michigan over this past weekend, meanwhile, started his career driving in the Craftsman Truck Series as a high school teenager. Free agent Kyle Busch has now famously given up his current Nextel Cup seat at Hendrick Motorsports confidant that he’ll be able to find another championship ride. That confidence comes from being the youngest pole winner and race winner in Nextel Cup history two years ago at age 20.
At this weekend’s Le Mans 24-hour Colin Braun drove a Krohn Racing Ferrari. Braun is perhaps best known for losing the Rolex Series championship last year to co-driver Jorg Bergmeister because Braun was too young (17) to race on the same weekend and track as the Indy Racing League, which has tobacco sponsorship. Bergmeister co-drove the Krohn team’s Riley-Pontiac to victory with substitute Boris Said and got the upper hand in the points as a result.
Elsewhere, Graham Rahal, the youngest driver to ever win a Toyota Atlantic Series race at age 17 last season, finished second this year in the Champ Car event at Houston for Newman/Haas Racing.
The youth surge is not limited to road racing or fendered vehicles. Sam Hornish, three seasons removed from Formula Ford 2000, took his first IRL championshp with Panther Racing in 2001 as a 22 year-old — Hamilton’s current age.
The guy Hornish beat by half a car length in the Indy 500 last year was 19-year-old Marco Andretti.
So what’s going on? Are younger drivers better these days?
Yes, they all arrive more prepared due to the improvements in both karting and the entry level ranks as well as the availability of realistic electronic racing games. As importantly, they’re getting into better equipment sooner in their professional careers.
That started with Jenson Button, who moved into a Williams seat at age 20, two years removed from karting. The following year, 2001, Alonso got his first F1 ride with Minardi at age 19. Kimi Raikkonen stepped into the seat at Sauber that same year, also just two years removed from karting but a relative old man at age 22. (Raikkonen was most remarkable for his rapid rise despite a relative lack of any racing experience, moving from Formula Renault straight into F1.)
Is Hamilton different from these guys? Yes. He has considerably more experience in the lower ranks — and all under the tutelage of his current McLaren Mercedes team. He spent two years in Formula Renault, two seasons in F3 and one season last year in GP2.
It’s a similar story in NASCAR, ever since Jeff Gordon started the phenomenon of younger drivers after two decades of forty-somethings dominating the Nextel Cup. Busch, now 22, was briefly side-tracked by NASCAR’s decision to establish a minimum age of 18 for its major touring series. After a year off, Busch entered Hendrick’s development program, moving from ARCA to the Busch Series and Nextel Cup in just two years.
Last season’s rookie of the year, Denny Hamlin moved from Late Models to the Nextel Cup with Joe Gibbs Racing in less than two years, winning his first pole in Phoenix at age 24.
There have been other young phenoms, but never so many in major series at the same time. Al Unser Jr. was regarded as a freckle-faced kid versus the square-jawed veterans of CART when he won his first race at age 22 during his second full season. (Contemporary Michael Andretti was an ancient 24 when he won his first race in his third full season with the Kraco team.)
John Paul Jr. took sports car racing by storm at age 22, winning the Camel GT championship in 1982 after taking nine poles during his rookie season the previous year.
Does the current trend mean younger drivers are always better? Hardly. Last year Bill Lester made an impressive debut in the Nextel Cup at the Atlanta Motor Speedway at age 45.
Seven-time Nextel Cup champion Dale Earnhardt, for another example, did not compete in a full season until the age of 29. (At the time, he was fudging on his actual age and listed himself as 28, which brings up the quandary of how many years David Pearson may have shaved from his actual birthday.)
The all-time ageless wonder was five-time world champion Juan Manuel Fangio, who disputed his first Grand Prix just shy of his 39th birthday and finished second in points that first season. And just how old was the first champion of the inaugural world championship season in 1950? Giuseppe Farina was 44.
Jonathan Ingram can be reached at jingram666@cs.com.
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In the “old days” teams would go out and hire an established shoe to pilot their vehicles. Now teams such as McLaren, Hendrick, Roush-Fenway, etc are signing early teens to development contracts. Not only do they have to build their cars, now they are shaping and training drivers.
A bit much if you ask me, but it seems to be a trend beyond reversing. Hamilton’s success will only spur other teams to search out younger talent at an even earlier age.