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Despite becoming the most successful British F1 driver of all time, Hamilton has been largely overlooked when it comes to both official and public recognition. Tennis star Andy Murray was quite properly knighted for winning Wimbledon yet no such honour has come Hamilton's way despite picking up five world championships since he was granted an MBE in 2009. Hamilton was the recipient of the prestigious BBC Sports Personality of the Year award in 2014, but despite multiple titles since then he's been the perennial bridesmaid watching on as Murray (twice), Mo Farah, Geraint Thomas and Ben Stokes have won the public vote. Perhaps that says more about the decline in F1's popularity as a whole than it does about Hamilton.
At the moment, arguably the biggest problem that Hamilton faces is his ongoing domination of the sport. People might like winners, but perversely they tend not to like someone who wins all the time. This was demonstrated by the antipathy towards Michael Schumacher during his unprecedented run at the top with five back-to-back titles between 2000 and 2004; and we saw it again with Sebastian Vettel between 2010 and 2014 which led to him being loudly booed as he wagged his winning finger on the podium on multiple occasions. Now its Hamilton's turn, especially since Rosberg quit the sport and left Hamilton the unequivocal top dog in F1's biggest powerhouse squad.
Arguably the biggest problem that Hamilton faces is his ongoing domination of the sport
But if Hamilton seems to have lived a charmed life by placing himself in the one team capable of helping him win five titles in six years, it's entirely his own doing. Pundits were convinced that Hamilton was committing a huge mistake when he turned his back on McLaren and joined Mercedes at the end of 2012, but he clearly knew what he was doing and it proved the making of him. He's certainly proven a better judge of which way the tide is flowing than Button, who with the exception of 2009 always managed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Admittedly at times Hamilton has come over as selfish, wary, demanding and aggressive - but these are common attributes of many top racing drivers, and especially world champions. He's human after all, just like Hunt, Schumacher and Senna before him. His success certainly doesn't warrant all the out-of-proportion vitriol, harsh comments and flat-out hostility toward him over the years. On which note, I'll don my tin helmet, hunker down in the air raid shelter and wait for the inevitable barrage of responses to commence...
