BRAVE Lewis Hamilton raced in the European Grand Prix despite being airlifted to hospital after the worst crash of his career the previous day.
The 22-year-old Briton, who led the world drivers’ championship in his first season, had been left helpless when his front right wheel broke and his McLaren Mercedes careered into the barrier near the end of qualifying for the European Grand Prix.
For 20 seconds, there was no movement in the wreckage, and his anxious team had been unable to contact him as the radio was damaged by the impact at one of the fastest sections of the Nürburgring in Germany.
Then his distinctive yellow helmet slowly emerged as he hauled himself gingerly from the cockpit and began to flex his legs.
It turned out that he had been severely winded by the accident, but amazingly, Hamilton escaped without a broken bone and reported little pain.
Minutes after the crash, Hamilton saw McLaren team boss Ron Dennis and told him, “I want to race.”
That was after describing the pain of being winded in the huge smash as like whacking your thumb with a hammer.
The man from Tewin in Hertfordshire was cleared and started from 10th place on the grid, which threatened to end his remarkable run of never finishing off the podium in his first nine races.
Immediately after the accident, as qualifying was halted for half an hour, the team checked teammate Fernando Alonso’s car and discovered he also had a loose wheel nut caused by the same faulty hydraulic wheel gun.
“We were lucky that we were able to spot that and put it right immediately,” said Dennis.
“It was a failure of the right-hand wheel gun, so effectively the wheel wasn’t properly put on.
“But that’s not the mechanic’s fault. We weren’t quite sure what failed, but it was fortunate because the same gun was used on Fernando’s car, and he hadn’t started to lean on it yet.”
Hamilton certainly had leant on his wheel, having completed an outlap to warm up his tyres before launching into the first of his flying laps as the battle for pole intensified with six minutes left.
He had set the fastest time of the session in the first sector and, unaware of what was about to happen, pushed the car through the Dunlop Kurve hairpin and accelerated into the fast stretch leading into a left-hander set to be officially named the “Schumacher S.”
The wheel, working itself loose, suddenly malfunctioned. The tyre flew apart under pressure, and the car buried itself in the tyre wall, destroying the front end.
“He was winded by the seatbelts,” said his father, Anthony. “He was flexing his legs because of that. He said it felt like hitting your thumb with a hammer.”
Thanks to the high safety standards of F1 cars, Hamilton—like Robert Kubica in Canada the previous month—was able to wave to the crowd and cameras and give a thumbs-up as he was taken on a stretcher to an ambulance with a saline drip to counteract shock.
It seemed certain that his three title rivals would gain points on him. Kimi Raikkonen, winner of the last two Grands Prix, had put his Ferrari on pole, with Alonso second and Felipe Massa third.
Alonso looked the quickest but lost control at turn five, costing him first place.
It had been a dire day for David Coulthard, who started 20th, and for a “massively disappointed” Jenson Button, who was in 17th. But the fourth British driver, Anthony Davidson, enjoyed being above them after taking his lowly Super Aguri to 14th.
Hamilton, who had enjoyed a virtually fault-free season, had never started worse than fourth and needed a remarkable drive to secure a 10th consecutive podium.
