Why Lewis Hamilton is still F1's leading love/hate figure

Lewis Hamilton has been a 'love him or hate him' figure even before he made his bow in F1. When McLaren selected him as Fernando Alonso's team mate for 2007 ahead of the likes of Pedro de la Rosa or Gary Paffett, fans reacted with surprise and disappointment viewing Hamilton as Ron Dennis's hand picked protégé promoted out of turn and ahead of his time. Clearly they hadn't been watching Hamilton's astounding drives in the GP2 support series, on his way to winning the title.

Fans have never really forgiven Hamilton for not sitting back and being a well-behaved number two driver to Alonso in his rookie year

Any lingering doubts were disproved from the first corner of his debut race in Australia. Hamilton went on to tie with Alonso in the drivers standings in his maiden season - which unfortunately meant that both men lost out on the title by one point to Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen. Alonso was furious and stormed out amidst the 'spygate' furore which cost McLaren all their constructors points. The Spaniard's loyal fans have never really forgiven Hamilton for not sitting back and being a well-behaved number two driver to Alonso in his rookie year as he was supposed to. Why didn't this young upstart know his place and respect his betters?

Arguably that was the start of what became a growing core of antagonism toward Hamilton. He only made matters for himself the following year when he won his first championship by pipping the popular Felipe Massa to the title at the Brazilian's home race, to the dismay of thousands of local fans in the grandstand. But after that, Hamilton's precocious start in F1 started to slide, and his critics were able to smugly assert that they had been right all along - Hamilton was a one-hit wonder who had simply got lucky, but would now quickly fade from view.