As a seven-time Formula 1 world champion, it’s fair to say that Lewis Hamilton has earned the privilege of deciding how he spends his time. Interestingly, he was yet to win an F1 title when he first defied his boss in order to appear on one of his favourite television programmes.
Andy Wilman, the former executive producer of Top Gear, has shared insights into Hamilton’s debut on the show’s popular ‘Star in a Reasonably Priced Car’ segment. Over the years, numerous celebrities and a select few F1 stars have been handed the keys to a nondescript road car and tasked with clocking the quickest lap time possible around their test track in Dunsfold, Surrey.
Hamilton made multiple appearances, but his first came after just one season in F1, during which he narrowly missed out on the title following a fierce rivalry with McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso.
The ‘reasonably priced car’ utilised by Top Gear at the time was a light blue Suzuki Liana, which proved to be a point of contention when persuading McLaren to allow Hamilton to participate. The British driver was also associated with Mercedes, and team principal Ron Dennis was reluctant to let him drive the car chosen by Top Gear.
“The first time he came down, I think it was when he just lost that rookie season, the championship by [one point],” Wilman told the Midweek F1 podcast. “So McLaren, still [in the] Ron Dennis days, so we were getting all Ron Dennis-ish-ness coming down the phone, ‘He’s in a Suzuki Liana’, you know?”
“And then like I think it was Matt Bishop was a PR at the time. Matt Bishop sort of rings and he goes, ‘Oh, Ron wants him to do it in like an SLR’. And we’re like, ‘It’s not the point, like… [everyone has the] same car’.
“And he went, ‘Yeah, you know what Ron’s like’. And Ron’s gone, ‘Yeah, but he’s a Mercedes man’. And we’re like, ‘Jesus Christ, Ron, is anybody going to go, well, I’m going to buy a Liana now. I won’t buy that S-Class’. It’s like, let it go!”
As it happened, whether Dennis relented or not became irrelevant, as Hamilton, who was a devoted fan of the programme and its legendary presenting trio – Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May – decided independently that he would make the appearance regardless.
Wilman added: “And then I think Lewis stepped in even as a kid and went, ‘I’m doing Top Gear’, because he was such a kid and he’d grown up watching it, so it was a red-letter day for him. Now, obviously now he’s stratospheric and everything bows to him, but back then he was like, ‘I’m coming down’.”
On Hamilton’s first appearance, the track was damp, which hindered his attempts to top the timesheets. However, during a second attempt on a drier day, he managed to set the fastest time of any F1 driver to have driven on Top Gear.
Yet, before the show concluded, Daniel Ricciardo outpaced him by seven-tenths of a second in the same Liana.