Nigel Roebuck: Fifth Column

As a rule of thumb, retired racing drivers are much more fun to interview than current ones, and for one very obvious reason: the past is the past, and they have nothing to lose.

In the fullness of time, I suppose, someone will write a definitive account of life at McLaren in the Year Of Our Lord 2007, and probably the author should be from neither Britain nor Spain, since many of those nationalities appear entrenched in their respective beliefs that Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso never do anything wrong.

Being from Manchester rather than Madrid, I have to declare an interest, of course, and state from the outset that I really don't think Lewis has done too much wrong in this, his maiden F1 season. He stuck it in the fence during practice at Monaco, and on Sunday he put it in the pitlane gravel trap during the race in Shanghai, and that - to the best of my recollection - is about the sum of it.

After the debacle last weekend, there was considerable 'Latin' rejoicing, not least, of course, because now Alonso's championship aspirations were suddenly alive once more, but also, I think, because the era of the anti-hero abides, and Hamilton's image is way too 'squeaky clean' for the tastes of some, even in his own land.

That's part of it, and another contributory factor is 'Lewis overkill'. Given that this is the most astonishing rookie in the history of Formula 1, and that - Ye Gods! - he is British, it's hardly surprising that the media has gone overboard on him this year, but over time that gets up a lot of noses, not least those of F1 fanatics whose love of the sport is perennial, and not greatly influenced by questions of nationality.

Perhaps the most exciting grand prix I ever saw was at Silverstone in 1969, when Stewart and Rindt - the two greatest drivers of the day - swapped the lead for virtually the entire race. I watched from Becketts, and around me at least as many folk were rooting for Jochen as for Jackie. In the end, Rindt's Lotus let him down, as it invariably did, but that didn't keep his supporters from saluting JYS on his lap of honour. They had seen a race they would never forget.

What fans across the world loved about Jochen was that they felt here was a free spirit, not always the most organised of men, nor one who invariably thought carefully before he spoke. It is always more immediately attractive, more glamorous, when success appears to come from instinct and genius, rather than careful planning and hard work.

In the case of Hamilton, there are elements of all these things. Watch him on a qualifying lap, and you're looking at a freestyle artist, emphatically on top of his car, untroubled by what the tail is doing, in the slow corners flicking the McLaren around like a kart. Lewis looks like a man enjoying himself.

The joie-de-vivre is usually in evidence, too, when he is surrounded by a forest of microphones. He's polite, gives more considered answers than most of his fellows, and generally smiles throughout. And it's that, I fear, that has started to get on some people's nerves. They have a suspicion this it's all a little too good to be true, fostered by the impression that Hamilton's life is minutely stage-managed by his ever-present father, not least because Anthony tends to talk in terms of, 'We won the Japanese Grand Prix...'

Sometimes a preoccupation with 'image' can have the opposite of the desired effect, and probably it's no more than human nature, in any endeavour, to want to see 'Mr Perfect' occasionally miss his footing. Hence the delight of some when Lewis beached himself in the gravel trap on Sunday.

On one level you could understand it, for now the title shoot-out would on to Interlagos, the last race, and if you were an Alonso or Raikkonen fan, of course you relished the thought that your boy could still do it. But in isolation, the pleasure apparent in Lewis's discomfiture was an unpleasant thing, and smacked of schadenfreude. Overall, there is not a doubt in my mind that he has been the best driver of 2007, the man who most deserves the championship.

After the race, McLaren people were quick to accept responsibility for what happened to Hamilton, and insofar as they apparently chose to go against Bridgestone advice to bring him in a couple of laps earlier than they did, there is no argument about that.

Hindsight, though, is always 20/20, and had they called him in on lap 28, rather than 30, the likelihood is that they would have given him a new set of intermediate tyres, for it was lightly raining at that point. By lap 30 the drizzle had stopped, and now the choice - slicks - was obvious, as evidenced by the fact that Raikkonen and Alonso both took them one lap later. As it was, Hamilton never made it to his pit.

If you look at Lewis's race in the round, you can criticise him - if you wish - for apparently not putting the world championship first. In the early laps, after all, he fairly tore away from Raikkonen's understeering Ferrari, but then it was reasonable to assume that Kimi was fuelled for three or four laps more, and he needed to build a cushion to see him through the first stops. Yes, he was taking a lot out of his 'inters', and, as it stayed damp, they necessarily stayed on the car for the second stint of the race.

After Raikkonen's stop, he was a lot closer to Hamilton - four seconds, rather than nine - than he had been, and Lewis's instinct was to fight back, to reassert his lead. In so doing, he hammered his Bridgestones once more, and when it began to rain once more, he was powerless against Kimi.

In itself, that wouldn't have been the end of the world, for the Ferrari driver wasn't his real concern in this race. Of greater consequence by far was Alonso, also on his original 'inters', and now lapping several seconds faster than he was. Suddenly Lewis was all over the place, in so much trouble that perhaps he should have put Messrs Dennis and Whitmarsh out of their misery, and said: "I'm coming in."

Understeering into the gravel was what put him out, but the underlying cause of the problem had come earlier, in the futile fight with Raikkonen.

You could say all these things, and you'd be right. You could say that Hamilton was caught out by his inexperience, by not taking the long view, by not thinking only of 'the championship'. Or you could say that he was working with a racing driver's instincts, that he was trying to win a race.

Perhaps there wasn't an abundance of logic in some of what Lewis did, but he stood way higher in my estimation than if he'd cruised around all afternoon, doing 'just enough' to take the title by a point or two. There again, I was a firm Villeneuve fan, and Gilles's philosophy was always that, if you won enough races, the championship would take care of itself. For me, there was a resonance of Villeneuve in what Hamilton showed in the Chinese Grand Prix.

Certainly it was there in his behaviour afterwards. He didn't hurl his helmet against the garage wall, nor kick a door off its hinges, nor slag off his employers, nor flounce out in a rage. He shook hands with all his mechanics (just as did Michael Schumacher, after his engine had blown apart in Suzuka last year), and he spoke calmly to the press. I hope he becomes world champion in Brazil, and it has nothing to do with mere nationality.