Lewis Hamilton: God Has His Hand Over Me

Lewis Hamilton believes he has the hand of God resting over him when he steps into his Formula One car.

The Christian racing driver will set his sights on wrestling back the championship lead at the British Grand Prix after falling one point behind Sebastian Vettel following a calamitous weekend for Mercedes in Austria.

Hamilton was given three days off by Mercedes as he prepares to race in front of an expectant 130,000 partisan fans at Silverstone on Sunday.

“Anything can happen any day, but I feel God has his hand over me,” Hamilton, 33, said ahead of his home race.

“Every morning I have breakfast and before I eat, I pray. Every time I eat, actually, I pray. So, whether it’s a couple of seconds, a minute or whatever you are praying for, take that moment.

“I go with a couple of my close friends [to church]. We meet, we go for breakfast and then we go to church together.

“We leave most often feeling enlightened and empowered. Sometimes you leave, and you are like ‘I didn’t get that today’, but most of the time you leave and you are like ‘wow, I know where I am going’.”

Hamilton is in his 12th season and this year is battling it out with Vettel for a fifth world crown.

Only Juan Manuel Fangio (five) and Michael Schumacher (seven) have won the championship more than four times.

Hamilton also surpassed Schumacher’s pole position record in Italy last year, and will become the most successful driver in the history of the British Grand Prix if he wins for a sixth time on Sunday.

“Formula One has given me a life, and given me a purpose, which is pretty special, but F1 has also broken me,” Hamilton, speaking on the ‘Beyond the Grid’ podcast, added. “It’s broken me and built me.

“When you go through it, you put so much into it, it breaks your heart and kills you when you fail, and when you stumble. Everyone’s watching when you stumble.

“But when you get back up and when you succeed it lifts you up. You fall and you break a bone, you heal and you keep going.

“It’s the passion for what you do and the will to succeed. It’s just something that’s hard to express but everyone has it in some shape or form.”

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Formula One’s Fernando Alonso ‘Thought He Was in 1995’ After pre-Season Crash

My note:  As “cousin Larry” perfectly put it, “Boy . . . the human brain is one amazing little gizmo.” Poor Nando! The tyranny of censorship coming to ‘Youtube.’ Watch here the “Perfect Strangers” episode on Dailymotion.

Spanish driver reportedly lost the memory of the last 20 years of his life following smash in testing.

Fernando Alonso woke up from his testing accident unaware he was a Formula One driver having forgotten the last 20 years of his life, according to reports in his native Spain.

Alonso will miss the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on March 15 on doctors’ orders after suffering a concussion. The 33-year-old was briefly unconscious after the crash at the Circuit de Catalunya and, according to Spanish daily El País, he woke up in hospital thinking it was 1995.

Asked who he was, what his job was, and what he hoped to do with his life, Alonso reportedly replied: “I’m Fernando, I drive go karts and I want to be a Formula One driver.” Alonso apparently could not remember making his Formula One debut with Minardi in 2001, or either of his world championships in 2005 and 2006.

Back in 1995, Alonso was 13-years-old and at school in his hometown Oviedo, northern Spain. Jose Luis, his father, had built a kart for Alonso when he was aged just three. Alonso has since won two world championships with Renault, rejoining McLaren at the start of this season from Ferrari.

Alonso spent three nights in hospital after his accident on February 22, before going home to his family. He posted a video on YouTube saying he was “completely fine” and had been eager to race in Melbourne but had gone with the medical advice.

McLaren chairman Ron Dennis admitted last week Alonso suffered retrograde amnesia, which he said was “not uncommon” in cases like this. McLaren declined to comment further on the reports, simply saying: “The day after the accident, we issued a press release, the chief purpose of which was urgently to correct a series of erroneous media reports to the effect that Fernando’s accident had been caused by a variety of car-related issues,” said the spokesman.

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Barack Obama & Lewis Hamilton Could Count 22!

During the coming first four days of November 2008, we’ll likely witness a unique hitory in the making. First, on the 2nd of November, Lewis Hamilton, driving a MaClaran Mercedes racing car, N° 22, is going to Sâo Paulo, Brazil, as a favorite, to clinch the precious Formula One title, become “The first ‘Black'(light) and the youngest ever Formula One Champion.

2 days later, November 4, 2008, Barack Obama — whose 22 state campaign is likely to be more successful than the 57 state campaign strategy — is heading to the White House as the first ‘Black’ (light) President in history.

So, the magic formula is: 2 + 2 = 4; 22 + 22 = 44. 44 as in the 44th President of the United States Of America.