Stevenage, England — Formula One drivers might epitomize suaveness with their worldly jet-setting and their residences in Monaco or Switzerland, but they have to come from somewhere, even from bedroom towns 29 miles north of London and profoundly unassuming.
So as the global supernova Lewis Hamilton on Sunday became the youngest champion in Formula One history some 5,887 miles away in Sao Paulo in a finish so suspenseful it menaced respiration, in his hometown it proved hard to find a rowdy pub.
Turns out Stevenage (population 79,000) gained town status only in 1946, and only in 1959 did the queen open its downtown pedestrian shopping area, so it's that newfangled brand of city where the town center on a Sunday evening features mostly skateboarders, the audible echo of your footsteps and some over-50 citizens edging toward a bingo hall.
That's even on a Sunday when a Stevenage-raised kid won the 2008 Formula One championship at 23 years 9 months 26 days, the same kid who got a go-kart at 6, approached McLaren honcho Ron Dennis at 10 asking to drive someday, and signed with McLaren at 13.
Not only that, but the grandson of Grenadian immigrants won the title by nudging startlingly from sixth place to fifth in gathering rain on the last turn of the last lap of the last of the 18 races. And not only that, but this eyelash finish averted a second straight season-closing thud for "the Tiger Woods of Formula One."
In October 2007, he went to Sao Paulo's Interlagos track as a 22-year-old rookie with, preposterously, a seven-point lead over Finland's Kimi Raikkonen, with Hamilton's fractious gearbox among the reasons Raikkonen took the title.
In November 2008, he arrived with a seven-point lead over Brazilian Felipe Massa, 94 points to 87, needing to finish fifth or better to render any Massa finish insufficient.
Well, Massa finished first, and after Hamilton had been cruising safely in fourth, fresh rain forced his stop for wet-weather tires on the 66th lap out of 71. When he resumed, the kid named for the American Olympian Carl Lewis held fifth, but Germany's Sebastian Vettel soon passed him, and you could sense English living rooms inhaling.
You couldn't sense it so much in the middle of Stevenage, where the first sports bar recommended -- in the mall near the bustling bowling alley and the busy Cineplex with the new James Bond on four screens -- wound up closed. You couldn't even sense it much after finally finding the spiffy sports bar the Old Post Office, cavernously populated even as the race reached palpitation stage.
