Let me just let out a delayed but still loud OMG WTF HOLY SH-T GAHHHHHHHHH before I start trying to put words together. And the reason for this delay is that I was on a work trip yesterday and didn’t have time to get to it. But trust me, I woke up on Thursday morning in LA and my phone was blowing up with this news: 

 

They’re calling it the biggest F1 driver move in history and it took everyone by surprise. Which is where I want to focus first, because as I keep saying over and over and over again, sports – just like show business – is fueled by gossip. Sports people suck at keeping secrets! And especially this sport; you know this if you watch Drive to Survive on Netflix. Season 6, by the way, is premiering on February 24 although I’m pretty sure what we all want right now is Season 7 because Lewis Hamilton’s decision just made last year completely irrelevant and the incoming next two seasons the most highly anticipated, maybe ever. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and go back to this big secret that they managed to lock down. That is an achievement unto itself. And that’s why the story made the impact that it did yesterday. Like, it was always going to be a motherload of a development, but the fact that no one knew it was coming made the bomb’s impact that much more profound. 

 

Whoever was handling the release, then, deserves come credit. Excellent media management and, frankly, I expect nothing less where Lewis is concerned. I also love how they confirmed it, that tweet I posted above and I’ll post again here, just because I admire it so much: 

 

Just 20 words and one image. The image is key. It’s the most recognisable image in motor sports, one of the most classic images in any sport and beyond sport. We all know that shade of red, we all know that yellow crest. House Ferrari is flexing with this announcement: the most storied team in Formula 1 has crowned as its new king the most storied driver in the F1 history in a quest for the ultimate storybook ending to a storybook career. 

The analysts will spend the next few weeks analysing this move from all the angles but for our purposes, from the celebrity angle, isn’t this the movie we never thought we could hope for? It’s so big, such an impossible dream (until 24 hours ago), that no can come up with an adequate comparison. This is a marriage between two supernova brands. The sight of Lewis, eventually, in Ferrari red, behind the wheel of a Ferrari? Like I said, nobody dared to even imagine it. And in a year it’s going to happen. 

 

But…that’s in a year. 

Right now he’s technically still racing for Mercedes. So we are in for a whole season of crazy ass drama. And it’s not like the paddock isn’t already a petty ass place. That’s the beauty of Drive to Survive and what makes it, still, the best sports docuseries, because people cannot help themselves. So on top of all their garden variety petty, we’re now dealing with Lewis on a team that he’s basically broken up with and all the musical driver chairs that will inevitably happen around his move on all the other teams. And whatever intrigue that Red Bull decides to stir up because if nothing, Christian Horner is always trying to mindf-ck someone. 

For Lewis though, and to go back to his celebrity, here’s an athlete, a living legend, adding to his own mythology. That’s why Lewis is Lewis. No one believes in Lewis more than Lewis.