‘Octopus’ Lewis Hamilton more skilful than Michael Schumacher

If you were to pit Formula 1’s two seven-time World Champions — Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher — against one another, who would win? 

For Williams team principal James Vowles, the answer is easy: Lewis Hamilton.

James Vowles claims Lewis Hamilton more skilful than Michael Schumacher

We now know him as the team principal of Williams, but James Vowles has developed an impressive legacy in the Formula 1 world. Getting started with British American Racing in 2001, Vowles was one of the employees who stuck around through its subsequent incarnations: Honda, Brawn, and then Mercedes.

At Mercedes, Vowles had the opportunity to work with two of Formula 1’s greatest icons — Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher — as chief strategist.

In an episode of the High Performance Podcast, Vowles compared and contrasted both of F1’s legendary talents. And according to him, it was actually Hamilton who was the more naturally skilful of the two drivers.

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Vowles was very clear in claiming, “Michael wasn’t the most skilful in the car. I’ve already said that was Lewis.

“But he [Schumacher] knew how to extract every millisecond out of himself and every millisecond out of the team.”

According to Vowles, Hamilton had “oodles of natural talent” that made him a stunningly successful driver.

He explained. “When you go out in FP1, he’s like an octopus all over the wheel. He’ll change every setting on the wheel, near enough, and explore it. But it’s what makes him incredible.”

In order to illustrate what he meant, Vowles shared an example.

“There was a time where, on simulation in Brazil, it said ‘hold seventh gear up the hill.’ And within two laps, Nico [Rosberg] was doing exactly as we asked him to do.

“Within two laps, Lewis went, ‘This doesn’t feel right,’ dropped back down to sixth — and was finding a tenth there.

“It took until the end of the session before Nico saw the data. Lewis is this optimiser. He’ll use data as a starting ground, but he’s got a feel beyond anything else for it.

“And he has no issue exploring the boundaries.

“That originally manifested itself in — you’d often see him go off at Turn 1. He’d find the absolute limit of braking, and it would just push him wide to Turn 1, then botch the lap.

“And one of our biggest frustrations with him was that out of 20 laps, he did one. Like, come on — you’ve got to do more than that.”

But that has changed.

“Actually, if you look at the maturity Lewis had between 2013 to now, you’ll see he completes every lap,” Vowles pointed out.

“He’s now found a way of still gaining the experience of the mind of the lap out of it.

“He was this perfectionist. Braking was his strength, his forte: Maximise everything under braking, and then, ‘I know the limits of the car,’ and build from there and get into the rhythm of things.”

While that approach did enable Hamilton to find plenty of pace, Vowles also admitted that the driver’s approach “came with some downsides.”

“Often, [Hamilton] would change the car so quickly that you’d lose yourself,” he said.

“Certainly, as engineers, it’s difficult, when your data is all moving, the track’s moving, the grip’s moving, the driver’s moved everything on the steering wheel… you don’t know where you are.

“And then he comes in, and we’ve changed mech balance and aero balance and you think, ‘OK — we’re starting from scratch here, basically.’

“That’s some of the reasons why at times you’ll see Lewis drop backwards — and often, when he jumps forwards again, it’s because he’s gone to a setup that’s known, and now he’s back on the money.

“But he’s able to do that, and many drivers aren’t. He’s able to explore often and accept that he’ll have a whole session perhaps in the wrong place on setup. But he’s learning from it. And that’s Lewis all over.”

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