My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman (2018) s02e04 Episode Script
Lewis Hamilton
1
[tires screech]
[crowd cheering]
[laughs] I mean, come on!
[theme music playing]
Do I go this way?
Oh, yeah. "To stage."
-Hi, how are you?
-I'm good.
[man] I'm gonna get
the audience ready to go.
-Give a little spiel and get ready.
-[David Letterman] Okay. Spiel?
[man] Roll a spiel. The old spiel.
I'm doing a spiel.
I'm trying to get them to buy real estate
in Florida.
[women laugh]
A spiel!
[cheering]
Thank you very much. Thank you.
My name is Ray.
I quit smoking with Chantix.
[audience laughs]
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen.
It's a pleasure to be here.
And, please, I pray to God
you didn't pay to get in here.
Just tell me
I was at dinner last night with my family,
and I said to my son Harry--
Anybody have kids? You got kids, right?
Everyone has kids?
-Any--
-[scattered applause]
Wow! The enthusiasm is overwhelming!
"Boy, do we have kids."
[audience laughs]
And I said to Harry, I said,
"Now, people may ask me
about you when I'm there,
so I'm gonna say a couple of things
about you, Harry."
And he puts up his hand and he says,
"Those people have no right
to know anything about me."
Anybody have a 15-year-old kid?
Are they just loaded with snark
and ready to go?
I mean, periodically,
he takes a swing at me.
-Does that ever happen at your house?
-[audience laughs]
So, if you see him,
please, dear God,
I don't need any trouble at home.
Boy, this
Do you know who's here tonight besides me?
[audience] No.
Well, the disappointment's
about to wear off because
Now, I know the name of this show is
My Next Guest Needs No Introduction,
and I think that's true.
Perhaps not absolutely true here,
but around the world.
And at the end of the evening,
if we all haven't had a good time,
you know, I'll fight everybody.
Ladies and gentlemen, do me a favor now,
please welcome Formula 1
five-time world champion,
Lewis Hamilton. Lewis!
[audience cheering]
-[Letterman] How are you? Good to see you.
-How are you?
I'm great, thank you.
-Wow.
-Thanks a lot for having me.
-How you doing?
-I'm great.
-Please, have a seat.
-Thank you.
-This is a thrill for me.
-Wow.
I've loved racing
I'm from Indianapolis.
You can't not love racing
-if you're from Indianapolis.
-Of course.
Let's talk about the numbers
of your career.
Seventy-three wins now?
-Seventy--
-I don't know.
I really don't know.
It's something like that.
Five world champions.
-Yeah, I know that one.
-Yeah.
[laughing]
When you're in the city of New York,
walking down the street,
do people say, "Oh, my God,
there's Lewis Hamilton"?
-No! [laughs]
-What do--?
What do they do?
Do they have an idea who you are?
Hmm, no, not too many.
Yeah. Well, we have that in common.
[audience laughs]
Have you ever been pulled over
in your road car?
-Unfortunately, yeah.
-Yeah.
Well, the thing is, back in the day,
you know,
probably in the '80s,
it would've been cool.
"Well, no wonder, he's a racing driver.
Of course he's gonna speed on the road."
Do that today, you're viewed so much more,
there are kids watching you, so
My dad used to always say,
"Don't speed,"
'cause he was always speeding.
Honestly, I'm really chilled on the road.
I don't particularly enjoy driving,
so I don't drive a lot.
[audience laughs]
Racing, I like.
[laughs] That came out wrong.
No, racing-wise
I love the racing part,
but there's no competition
when you're on the road,
and, also, you know, there's a lot of
crazy drivers out there on the road.
You'll see an older person come by,
up on the steering wheel like this,
and I'm like,
they've got no control up here.
I'm nervous about people's
My surroundings.
It's the old story,
a guy gets pulled over,
"Uh, you know how fast you're going?"
"Who do you think you are?
Lewis Hamilton?"
-I had that.
-Yeah. See?
I swear, I had that in London one time,
but I wasn't speeding,
my car just made a lot of noise.
So, I got flashing lights behind me.
And he came to the window, like, "Who
do you think you are? Lewis Hamilton?"
And he looked down,
and he's like, "Oh, jeez!"
[laughing]
It was really cool.
That's keen.
You're really into the cars, so I know
you have a fairly decent collection?
I have some cars.
You know, I'm not Jay Leno,
but I have some cars.
[audience laughs]
In the '60s, Jack Brabham, Jackie Stewart,
Graham Hill, and all of
these other European F1 drivers
came to Indianapolis,
and that's really when I fell in love
with all forms of that sport.
[Lewis Hamilton] Which one is your
favorite-- IndyCar, NASCAR, Formula 1?
I don't want to offend people,
but I'm just gonna take NASCAR
and set that aside.
Okay.
[audience laughs]
I appreciate that. [laughs]
How long have you been
racing cars for already, Lewis?
About a year.
-Is it easy to do?
-No.
And we have a winner!
[Hamilton] My parents separated
when I was two,
and I grew up with my mom
till I was about eight,
and then I spent the weekends with my dad
and he had no idea what to do with me.
Kind of, "What do I do with this kid?"
So, we started racing
radio-controlled cars.
I was the youngest there by at least ten,
15 years, and I was beating everyone.
Then my dad had an idea
to put me in a go-kart,
so he bought me a go-kart,
which was fifth-hand
from the back of a newspaper.
We went to the local DIY store,
drove it around after-hours.
And loved it, naturally,
and we found a race course nearby
and started to go there and practice.
And we had absolutely no idea
what we were doing.
I always relate my life a lot
to Cool Runnings. It's my favorite movie.
And
Honestly, that's really my life story.
Basically, we arrived at the track,
and like in the movie,
they arrive at the top of this hill
with this rusty bobsled,
and the whole paddock goes quiet.
Like, "What are they doing here?" And that
was really how I remember it being for us.
We turned up in this car,
which my dad took a lot of pride in,
and it looked great.
But the go-kart was hanging out the trunk.
And he was pushing me down,
just like in the bobsled, they get in
and the coach pushes them down the hill.
That was my dad.
My first race, I won.
People were a little bit shocked by it,
but we just continued to do it.
-[siren wailing]
-Excuse me, my ride is here.
[laughs]
I knew that would happen.
[go-kart engines rev]
[Letterman] You're a kid, eight years old.
So, there you are,
most kids are on a tricycle or a bicycle.
You're now in a go-kart.
Well, for me, it's quite a deep thing,
because I was a smaller kid.
I struggled at school,
I was bullied up until that point.
And I get in the car,
and I was good at something.
And my dad, like, recognized that,
and he was like
And he would support me with it, so
that was where we really truly connected,
and I get in the car,
and I could stand up for myself.
Not everyone was particularly welcoming.
You know, we didn't see any other people
of color there.
Yeah. And what about now?
If you, when you go back
to watch karting events,
is there greater diversity now?
There is. You know, it's
You know, not just black,
there's Asians,
it's a real, real mix,
people from different walks of life.
I've got Indian families
come up to me and say,
"Oh, my son wants to do
what you're doing."
I've got white, I've got Mexicans.
All people come over to me,
and I feel like
perhaps we've kind of broken that mold.
That's tremendous.
[go-kart engines rev]
[Letterman] So, you're Chloe?
Yes.
-You're Christian?
-Yes.
Do you guys know each other?
-Yeah.
-Yeah.
-Do you race--?
-We race locally together.
Do you win races?
-Yeah.
-How many races have you won?
Too many to count.
Whoa!
-Too many to count!
-[coach] Yeah. There you go.
Man! How about you?
About five, I'd say.
Five? Pretty good.
What is your goal with motor sports?
I want to be in F1.
-Formula 1?
-Yeah.
There's more women involved in racing
now than ever before.
But there's only 20 drivers, really,
active on the Formula 1 grid.
You're aware
that this is a long shot, right?
-Yeah.
-Yeah.
-But I can do it.
-Yeah.
I want to do it.
Who's your favorite driver?
Lewis Hamilton.
Lewis Hamilton?
Go-kart is where he started, you know?
-This is where everybody starts.
-Yeah.
This track looks enormous
and daunting.
We come through this chicane?
Yeah, we come through the chicane,
and then
you come up to the hairpin.
I remember, one time,
when I was racing
and there was a chicane
that you weren't supposed to lift,
you were supposed to take flat-out.
And I couldn't do it.
I always had to lift.
Now, what does that say to you?
-[Chloe] That you're scared?
-[Letterman] I don't have-- Yeah!
Yes, I was scared! Good answer.
The car is designed so you go
flat-out through that chicane.
It's supposed to handle better
when you're right on the limit.
-Does he know what he's talking about?
-Mm-hmm.
-So, that would be your advice to me?
-Yeah.
Just let the kart do the
-[Christian] Yeah.
-[Chloe] Let the kart do the work.
Trust the kart. All right. Well,
that's kind of the motto for the day.
Now, what about blocking?
Now, seriously,
I'm gonna tell you something,
I'm blocking.
Nobody's coming by me.
I will not be lapped.
I may finish last,
but I'm not gonna be lapped, okay?
I'm just putting you guys on warning,
-do you understand me?
-Yes.
I'm getting a little hot
talking about it now.
But, you see, we're kinda taught
how to deal with those people
-who block excessively.
-Oh, now I'm one of "those people"?
They just gotta get knocked right off.
Okay, here, I wanna go on record
as saying, right here and right now,
I'm not moving over.
Because the ignominy at my age
-could be crushing, do you understand?
-[both laugh]
[engine revs]
[clanking, whirring]
[Letterman] Hey.
No cowboy stuff, all right?
I'm 100!
[Chloe laughs]
[Letterman] Is somebody gonna start me?
[engine starts]
-Oh.
-Hey.
-Got someone in the wall.
-Dave.
Definitely a New York City driver.
Yeah, I got confused.
[laughs] I looked back and then
I didn't see you, and I was like
-What? And then
-What happened to him? Yeah.
And when I looked back again
and I was going down the straight,
-you, like, spun out over there.
-Yeah, I spun out twice.
I hit the barrier once,
and I think the thing is busted.
-Were you worried?
-Um
-Hmm.
-Yeah.
How about you? Scared?
[Chloe] Sure.
Yeah.
You knew you had
a crazy man out there, right?
Your driving was so confusing,
I didn't know what emotions I was feeling.
[Chloe laughs]
But see?
That's how I get in your head, son.
That's how I get in your head, my friend.
I know your father made great sacrifices
on your behalf,
and I think I read that at one point
he had three jobs
-because karting--
-Three or four, Dad?
-I think it was four.
-Make it eight. Nobody's gonna check.
[Hamilton] This is the problem,
-it's so expensive as a sport.
-That's what I was gonna say.
What are we talking about if a kid
has a medium setup?
There's a trailer and a team.
What is that gonna run a kid?
Well, I mean, today,
I believe it's all about teams.
There's no place for people like us,
where we started
and it was just in the back of the car.
I think my dad said,
in the first year--
You know, it wasn't just my dad,
it was my stepmom. They both
sacrificed all the money they had,
all their savings,
re-mortgaged the house multiple times.
-Kinda crazy.
-Re-mortgaged the house multiple times?
Yeah. I mean, it sounds kinda crazy,
but there's a lot of people in the world
who do want that success
for their children.
-But it doesn't always happen.
-Doesn't always happen.
So, your dad is working
just virtually around the clock,
getting no sleep.
He would leave at, like,
5:30 in the morning, go to London,
you know, get the train to London,
then he'll come back.
He wouldn't get back
till, like, eight o'clock.
He wouldn't even really,
he'd probably spend 15 minutes eating,
then he'd be in the garage fixing my kart
till one o'clock in the morning,
and then he'd be back out again.
I just didn't understand how he did it.
Now, where you are,
five-time world champion,
looking back on that circumstance,
what are your feelings about that?
Naturally, as I get older,
I appreciate it more and more.
-Yeah.
-You know, my dad didn't have new clothes.
I mean, he still, today, doesn't
have new clothes, but there's just
You know, just--
You know, they could have been
going on holidays,
you know, saving up, doing great things
for themselves, but they never did that.
Let's have your father--
Anthony, do you mind standing up
so people can get an actual look at you?
So
You can sit down now, Dad.
Come on.
He came through
the airport this morning,
the guy said, "Is this your brother?"
I was like, "Damn it!"
[Letterman] Yeah!
[Hamilton] They say black don't crack,
so I'm hoping that I've taken on some
of those genes! [laughs]
How do I look?
Well, you know,
I've been thinking, the beard
-Ah?
-I'm envious of it.
-Well!
-No, 'cause I can't grow
-This is as far as I can go.
-You'd be--
But you look fantastic.
Oh, well, you're very kind.
And I think, for a guy pushing 100,
I don't look that bad.
I think you look great!
[Letterman laughs]
I don't wanna sound like an old guy,
but here's something you'll learn
when you have your family,
that being in a business with your son,
at that formative age,
for as long as you guys did it together,
both of you loving it
Every father on the planet
would take that
-relationship with their son.
-Of course.
[tools whir]
Set the front wheels down, Lewis, please.
I thought we had a mechanic in here
last night cleaning this kart up.
No.
[man] Lewis, what do you reckon's
the best thing about kart racing,
-if you just had to say it in one word?
-Speed.
Just love the speeding bit.
This is posh compared to
-our day 20-odd years ago.
-Is that right?
[Anthony] When we started racing here,
I remember, you know, 36 kids on the grid.
And I used to think, "Well, what's
going to mark us out as different?"
'Cause everybody's coming round,
braking at the same points
and accelerating at the same points.
So, I said to Lewis, "Tell you what,
why don't we brake 100 foot later
than someone else?"
It caused a lot of problems,
because Lewis kept crashing into people
on the first time we tried it.
I said, "All right, Lewis, brake here."
And he'd come zooming past
the normal braking points
and flying off the circuit.
And at the time,
where it's all nicely manicured now,
that used to be just mud and water,
and he used to end up in the water.
Eventually, he'd get the braking right
and he'd come round this bend,
and we're zooming
straight past these guys.
-All of a sudden, we're winning races.
-Yeah.
This is my favorite part
of the whole deal.
Tell us what you knew about racing
-at that point in your life.
-Absolutely nothing.
Absolutely nothing!
I used to say to people, "I've just
put Lewis out on a four-poster bed,"
because I don't know
what tire pressures are,
what the sprockets were,
how tight the chains should be.
You muddle along
and you make things work,
but, you know,
Lewis used to make me look good,
-put it that way.
-Well
And I think it's because of everything
that I didn't know,
-he learned, you know?
-Yeah.
And you didn't always get along, did you?
You know, when we started,
it was family fun time.
But then it got to a point,
very, very quickly, where it was like,
"Blimey, Lewis is good."
-Yeah.
-I had to get serious.
Because, you know, sometimes, you can
mollycoddle the kids,
and you can say, "Yeah, that was great."
They've just come last
and you tell them, "You were brilliant."
Well, you know, if he came second,
I used to tell him how bad he was.
Oh.
Because you can always do better.
So, at a certain point, your duties
as a manager, contracts, sponsorship,
-that kind of thing.
-Yeah.
And then there was a break.
-You're no longer his manager.
-Yeah.
And was that a mutual decision?
-Definitely not. No.
-Not.
How did that make you feel?
Broke my heart.
-Broke your heart?
-Yeah.
From the time he started,
at eight years of age
we used to have a father-son
"Be careful, love you
do the best you can," handshake,
every time he went out on the race.
And in 2010, that was it.
It all just stopped.
You're breaking my heart.
-Yeah, it was hard.
-Yeah.
We didn't communicate for
probably that year and the second year.
You and your son didn't talk for--
-Yeah. A long time.
-Oh, no.
Yeah. Several years on,
I look back on it and I think,
he was looking for himself.
I wouldn't so much say
it was that he broke my heart,
-but my heart was broken.
-Sure.
[Anthony] It was a moment
that you knew was gonna come.
[Letterman] What did you know?
It's like taking your parents to work.
[Letterman laughs]
You know, so
Yeah, that's pretty much
all you need to know, yeah.
I mean, I pushed hard,
whether it was good for me
or bad for me
with my relationship with Lewis,
because I didn't want him to fail.
And so I never allowed myself to waver.
I never said, "Oh, chill, relax,"
you know, "Let's not do this."
It was always full on, because
I can see the brilliance in Lewis.
And I still can.
I think we both say that the best memories
that we have,
winning the first
British Championship in 1995.
And we left in this
rust bucket RV that we had
that wouldn't go beyond 40 miles an hour.
And we were racing against a wealthy kid,
and they had everything,
they even had a team, they had
He had many karts,
and he paid this guy, like, £5,000 a day
to mechanic his car,
and my dad was my mechanic,
and this guy's wheel fell off
in the last race.
-Ah!
-And it was just great.
We left singing,
"We are the champions of England."
-And you know
-[audience applauds]
It was cool.
I'm sorry to fixate on the relationship
between your father and son--
No problem.
My son,
I love him dearly,
but we don't have the relationship
that you and your father had,
and the fact that it was successful
for both of you is so gratifying,
and then that it came apart,
I think, makes perfect sense.
And everything's good now?
Yeah. I'm really, really excited
about this Christmas.
This is the first year I'm having my dad,
my stepmom and my mom at Christmas Day,
so that's been, you know
[audience applauds]
I'll be alone at the Golden Corral.
[laughing]
[Letterman]
You had a deal with Ron Dennis at 13.
At 13, I had a paper route.
But you were making money.
I wasn't making money, so
Well Yeah, I was making good dough.
All those paper boys, making great money.
How did the folks at McLaren hear
about you?
You introduced yourself to Ron Dennis
when you were ten?
When you win a championship, at the end
of the year, there's an awards ceremony.
I remember we couldn't afford a suit
for me at the time, so we borrowed one
from the kid that won the previous year,
this green velvet suit.
-And it fit perfect.
-That's great!
You borrowed it from last year's winner.
[laughs]
[Hamilton] It was really cool.
And my dad got this little booklet,
and it had the space for an autograph,
number, address and email.
So, I went over to Ron, I was like,
"Hey, I'm Lewis Hamilton,
and one day I wanna be
a world champion in your car."
-Wow.
-And he wrote in my book,
"Phone me in nine years,
I'll give you a deal."
He then followed me the next few years,
which I won the next three championships,
and I got home from school one day,
I was 13, my dad's like,
"Ron Dennis just called
and offered us a sponsorship deal,"
and I was like "Oh, cool."
-[Letterman] Yeah.
-[audience laughs]
[Hamilton] And growing up,
Ayrton Senna was my favorite driver,
and he had three world titles.
He was the guy I wanted to be.
And I told Ron Dennis,
"I wanna race for you,"
because Ayrton raced for him.
[Letterman] What was
the great appeal of Ayrton?
Because when he died
a great portion of the world stopped.
[Hamilton]It really did,
particularly in Brazil.
People came out onto the streets,
a lot like Princess Diana.
But I think it's really how he carried
himself, and how he defied the odds.
He was very outspoken.
And a bit of a brat on the track.
I disagree. I think he was just
He wasn't a pushover.
He really stood up for his values
and his beliefs.
I would've done the same.
Have you been to the site in Imola?
Yes.
Being there was
crazy for us, you know?
To be on the track knowing
that Ayrton had raced there before
and driving past the area
in which he had his incident.
It was very emotional, I would say.
Now, how do you deal with that then,
when you're
driving past? How do you deal with it now?
How do you deal with it every race?
How does your family deal with it?
How do your competitors deal with it,
the factor of danger?
For me, it's never been something
that I particularly consider,
or think about.
I just-- I love racing.
I'm kind of an adrenaline junkie, so
of course I respect it,
and I know that it's there.
That's the exciting thing.
If there was no danger, we wouldn't do it.
I will say that open wheel racing
is much safer,
statistically, now than it maybe has been
at any other time.
-Is that true?
-Yeah, particularly after his crash.
A lot of focus
and a lot of money went into safety.
And every year, they introduce a new car.
By the way, I saw that
you just recently had a seat-fitting.
-Is that true?
-Yes.
How did your seat fit?
It didn't.
-It didn't fit?
-My suit didn't fit, and
my seat didn't fit that great, no.
It was the seat that I've been
using all year, as well.
Now, what? Explain that.
Well, once you get past the last race,
you start eating more.
[laughing]
You said you're starting to train now?
Yeah, so in these races,
we lose up to ten pounds in a race.
-So, four kilos.
-I'm sorry, ten pounds?
-Yeah.
-And this is from what?
Just heat? G-forces?
-Tension?
-G-force, your body's constantly tense.
The speeds we go through these corners,
we do 180 miles an hour
through some of the-- Bless you.
[laughing]
I've got really good hearing,
-I can't help it.
-Yeah, nice.
Yeah, so, the G-force
you go through these corners,
your body wants to go
the opposite direction,
and we pull up to six times our weight.
The head weighs I can only do kilos,
I can't keep doing pounds.
If your head weighs,
you know, close to ten kilos,
and you're pulling six times,
-60 kilos through a corner on your neck.
-On your neck, yeah.
And how do you train for that?
Are there specific bits of equipment
that are used
to get your neck strong, or?
Yeah, for your neck. So, I have a helmet
that's made of lead, basically.
I think it's 15 kilos that it weighs.
And you just lay off the edge of a bench,
bed, and you do multiple reps.
But then, otherwise, it's just cardio.
Anyway, we start training,
getting into shape through January
and then testing start--
I'm at the factory
at the beginning of February.
And you're there a lot, you know,
studying the new car,
understanding what tools you have.
The tools are constantly evolving.
My goal is to be
the driver that's most on top of it all
by the first race.
You're an athlete.
There's no question of that.
And then the mental aspect of this sport
is way beyond
well, I think, what it used to be.
People like me,
watching on television or in the stands,
you just see guys going as fast
as they absolutely can go.
No, everyone I talk to, they're like,
"Yeah, but you're just
sitting on your backside."
-[laughs]
-It's so technical.
And it is probably too technical today.
I really wish that you could all feel
what I feel in a Formula 1 car.
We can all go and try and be LeBron James
and get a swoosh.
But you can't go
and get in a Formula 1 car
and feel the forces that I--
There's no way of even
You've just gotta imagine it.
I have a radio mic.
I have to make sure it's off, but I'm
I'm yelling a lot in the car
through excitement,
as you would on a roller-coaster ride.
It's not cool, but it's so much fun!
[laughing]
[Letterman] So this, today,
the introduction of the new car,
is the beginning of your 2019 season,
-isn't it? Yeah.
-It is.
I literally just saw the car
coming together last night.
-They were building last night.
-Still building.
And today's the first time
that I get to drive the car.
The first lap of that new car,
what information do you get out of that?
It's like meeting someone
for the first time, you know?
You come in a little bit apprehensive,
you're a little bit unsure
-of what the person's gonna be like.
-You're talking about me now?
Yeah, it's just literally the same
as meeting someone new, you know, and
you see it and it looks great,
the person is great,
but then you get to understand
their character.
And, you know,
you're strapped into this rocket,
and bit by bit, you start
building this relationship with it.
[Letterman] God, look at all this stuff!
Yeah, wait till you see the new one.
This is nothing.
[engine starts]
Oh, wow!
That's delightful, isn't it?
[laughs] I mean, come on!
For years,
I've been trying to get a hold of a car
that sounded that way
just to upset the neighbors.
And then I found out that,
to upset the neighbors,
I don't need a car.
In my years of being involved
and associated with racing,
I've come to the conclusion
there's really only one person having fun,
and that's the guy driving.
When you get in this car,
and you have the halo,
and you have the seat fitted to you,
I've read that it's so comfortable
that you don't like to be in it
prior to the race
because you might doze off.
No, that's not the case.
I like dozing off.
Sleep is the best thing ever.
In the car?
Yeah, that's probably
the most comfortable I am.
The seat is very snug.
And it's warm. They have these radiators
and the hot engine behind you, so
you go out and do your qualifying lap,
it's like doing a sprint
and then coming back,
and your heart rate decreases real quick,
-and then you fall asleep.
-What--
So I keep my visor down, because
I don't want the camera to catch me.
-What is your resting heart rate?
-Probably in the low 50s, probably?
-50 beats a minute?
-Probably.
-Resting heart rate?
-Probably in the low 50s.
That's pretty good.
It's all right.
And then at the height of a race?
Probably get up to 180, 190 in qualifying.
It's quite intense for one lap, so you
But over a race, you can't keep that up.
You have to be strategic.
If you pushed 100%,
you wouldn't make it
to your first stop, so,
you have to pull back a lot.
A good pit stop lasts
two-and-a-half seconds?
Two seconds? Three seconds?
The best pit stop now,
I think, is 1.7 seconds.
Four tires off, four tires on.
Yeah, so, they've done away
with that needless waiting around.
-Yeah.
-[audience laughs]
It's
-kinda crazy.
-It is kinda crazy.
And how many people are over the wall?
There's, like, 23 guys.
So, they're like bowling pins.
And you're coming down the pit lane
at 80 kilometers an hour,
and if you don't get it right,
you'll take them all out.
They always say that there's
not enough passing in Formula 1.
-Because we have too much down force.
-Yeah.
The forces which our wings produce,
they're basically like a plane has lift.
Yeah, they always say, if you could do it,
you could get a Formula 1 car
to stick to the top of a tunnel,
driving upside down, because
it produces so much suck to the cement.
80 miles an hour,
you can put it on the roof of a tunnel
upside down and it'll stay there.
Well, let's do that.
[audience laughs]
Have a part that goes upside down,
in the middle of the straight?
-Now, you're talking!
-Yeah! [laughs]
As I understand it,
your Formula 1 career,
the power plant has always
been Mercedes, am I correct?
It has, yes.
So, you know Mercedes inside and out.
-Yeah.
-Yeah.
A friend of mine named Bobby Rahal,
who's a partner of mine in racing,
I overheard him talking to a guy
about Mercedes-Benz
making a 700-horsepower station wagon.
And I said, "Holy crap!
I gotta get me a 700-horsepower
station wagon,"
because you never know
when you got to get to Costco in a hurry.
[laughs]
-You know?
-Well, just confirm something to me,
so, a station wagon, what is that?
-In England, we don't have station wagons.
-Oh, I'm sorry, it's a
Pick-up truck?
[laughs]
Which one is the station wagon? SUV?
No, it's where you put
all the kiddies in the back.
-SUV?
-Just the younger brother of the SUV.
-Okay.
-Station wagon,
you pick people up at the station.
I see, okay. [laughs]
Okay, now they do versions
of a 700 rate horsepower, yes?
-That's right.
-So, you got it?
-Not anymore.
-Okay.
So, it's now winter time,
and there's snow.
My wife has to go shopping in it.
So, she takes it and I say, "Enjoy it.
People are gonna go crazy
when they see you in this station wagon.
700 horsepower--"
-In the snow?
-Yeah.
So, she comes home and she says,
"I'm in the parking lot at CVS.
I can't stop doing donuts."
[laughs]
And I, because I think
I know everything, I said
So, me and Harry go out in it,
and it's like Holiday On Ice.
I mean, it's Ice Capades.
We're everywhere.
-Of course.
-It's just all over the road.
And the thing is all-wheel drive.
So, is this a complaint
to Mercedes, or?
Yes!
[laughing]
Yes! This is as close as I can get!
[laughs]
So, I take it back to the guy
and he says, "Oh, don't worry,
these cars are in such demand,
we'll sell this tomorrow."
And I said, "Oh, thank God."
And I said, "What don't, uh--"
Well, what would you say
I don't know about driving that car?
Did you have snow tires on it?
[sighs]
[audience laughs]
That's what the guy said.
[laughing]
I told him the story and I said,
"Why can't I drive it?"
And he said, "You need snow tires."
And I thought, "Oh, my God.
An all-wheel drive--"
But, honestly, that's a lot of power
and that's--
You don't need that when it's
it's picking up people
from the station, you know?
[laughs] No, see,
that's where you're wrong.
When you're picking people up
from the station,
-you need that kind of power.
-[laughs]
So I felt like a complete boob,
because I thought,
it must snow in Germany.
And they don't seem
to have any problem with it.
And I've seen commercials
where Santa is driving one.
[audience laughs]
Where was it? Was it in the city?
No, it was up where I live.
But, in Germany, they've got a great
infrastructure, so when it does snow,
they've got grit down, they're prepared.
You're very polite,
because I know what you're thinking is,
"That dumb-ass can't drive."
[laughing]
Why have we got a station wagon?
This is the one we talked about.
I had one of these for a weekend.
It's not a race car.
You do realize, right?
This is one where you can have the dogs
and the family in the back.
That's right.
But it's, like, 700 horsepower.
Yeah, but so is a race car.
-How was your day?
-It's been good, up until now.
Stop that.
Now, you got the steering wheel
really close to you
-I like it. I like it like that.
-Really?
It sounds nice.
Okay, let's go for it.
This is the one I couldn't drive in snow.
You show me where to brake.
You should brake now.
Now.
-Brake.
-Tight.
[tires screech]
-Whoo!
-[laughing]
[Hamilton] Go!
-[Letterman] Brake where?
-Brake.
-Hard?
-Off the brake. Turn in.
-[tires screech]
-[laughing]
Yeah, buddy!
Now, get on the power. Unwind.
Whoa! Shoot!
Sorry!
You don't turn too aggressively.
You want to be flowing.
Oh, you're talking to the right guy.
-Keep going.
-I can't!
-No, I'm not doing that again!
-Let's keep going.
-Keep going!
-I'm not gonna do that again!
No! Here's where I'm braking!
-[engine revs]
-[tires screech]
You gotta brake harder.
-Oh, really?
-Yeah.
Man alive.
Well, do I get my license?
-I wouldn't give you a Super License yet.
-Oh, come on, give me a Super License.
How about a beginner's permit?
Yeah, you definitely get
the beginner's permit.
I'm alive!
Thank you, Jesus!
We were in Florida,
racing these kids, karters.
I said to this little girl,
"Do you brake at the end of the straight?"
and she said, "No,
you have to let the kart do it for you."
I feel like, if I do that,
I'm giving up control.
-That's what you have to do, though.
-Yeah.
-That's what the kid said, exactly.
-Just like this girl says.
-You have to trust in the car.
-Yeah.
-[engine revs]
-[tires screech]
Yes!
[Hamilton] So, we're gonna see
how hard you can brake.
Well, this is about what I was doing.
-Did you light up the tires back there?
-No.
Oh, man! You're gardening there!
-It's about using all the track.
-You gotta use the whole track.
Excellent.
Now, I'll tell you where to brake here.
Tell me when to brake.
Now! [laughs]
-[tires screech]
-Oh, buddy!
I'd like to point out
that I never got it that sideways.
Now, yeah. Get the curb.
Whoa! You about turned it over.
All right, just let it unwind.
There you go.
Okay, just hit the curb.
All right, maybe not quite that much.
Oh, I'm telling you,
beautiful job on the curb.
Okay, now brake here.
All right, now let it unwind here.
Whoa! [laughs]
Oh, man, is that good!
Okay, get ready to brake. Yeah.
[Hamilton] Oh, the brakes are not working.
-You've cooked the brakes! Listen to this!
-[tires screech]
-[Hamilton] We've got no brakes.
-Are they gone?
-Yeah, they're not working anymore.
-Yes!
Yes!
Let's see if they work.
Oh, shoot! They're literally on fire.
-Oh, yeah.
-They're on fire.
[laughs] Oh, crap. They're on fire!
-[Letterman laughs]
-[engine revs]
[Hamilton laughs]
I don't have my
-Seat belt on.
-Oh, okay. That's good.
[tires screech]
-[engine revs]
-[Letterman laughs]
Oh. That was amazing!
Shut down Disneyland.
Shut down Six Flags over Poughkeepsie.
This is what you need to do.
Oh, my God.
And it smells good.
-That's when the brakes are on fire.
-Jesus. Yeah.
The brakes were on fire!
That is usually the biggest shock
to people when you go out,
you don't realize
how hard you hit the brake.
Look at my neck.
Have you ever seen
a more powerfully built man?
I don't feel anything.
How many Gs are we pulling?
Ten? 15?
[laughing]
We might have got, like, one,
-on the braking.
-Uh-huh.
And in Formula 1, we'd pull up to six.
Six,
seven, whatever it takes.
This is the most fun
I've had in my entire life.
Michael Schumacher is certainly
the most successful driver
-in Formula 1.
-Yeah.
He has seven world championships?
Is that what you want?
Will you not feel comfortable if you
don't get seven world championships?
At least tie, or do you wanna try eight?
Michael retired when he was 38.
I'm 33, so, I mean, in my mind,
I can definitely do five years.
And the fact now that you've done five,
doesn't mean you're gonna win two more,
doesn't mean you're gonna win one more.
But I am ridiculously
-determined to win.
-[laughing]
I'm gonna win next time.
No, you're not.
You tried to overtake somebody
on the outside on that bend.
-Yeah.
-You nearly run off the track, didn't you?
No.
Dangerous move that is, Lewis.
Well, there's only one lap,
it was the last corner.
Oh, was it? Oh, right,
that's fair enough then.
Last lap. Gotta do it
on the last lap, haven't you?
[Hamilton] What really drives me,
and I feel somewhat the people
that race against may lack
is that fire, that when were young,
and just how hard they had to work.
I've got this opportunity that I could
easily let go of it right now,
but I'd feel like I would be
squandering it if I didn't continue
to improve, grow and push.
So I gotta keep going
for as long as I can,
till I'm not enjoying it.
How do you know
when you're not enjoying it,
because it looks like
at least the way you do it,
nothing but fun.
It's definitely not just nothing but fun.
You know, it's
It's a hard, hard year. Mentally,
you have these massive highs
of these wins and success, and then
you have these massive comedowns.
Something I've never really spoken about,
but, like, you often do suffer
from mental issues,
instabilities,
and keeping that through the year,
keeping yourself together
when you hit rock bottom,
which you do, as an athlete.
-Yeah.
-If you're lucky, you can find
there's still strength
within, at rock bottom.
And that's where you
You know, so it's about how you get up,
not how you've fallen.
You posted, I'm paraphrasing,
sure, it's a tough day,
maybe you're not feeling great,
-but keep your head up and keep going.
-Yeah.
And that little gesture
was a huge thing for people.
The thing is,
we all really do have a platform.
It doesn't matter if you have
five followers or millions.
-You know, we all have a voice.
-I have five followers.
[laughing]
Gosh, you're a tremendous kid.
-Oh, thank you.
-I have great affection for you,
and great admiration.
-I appreciate it. Good to have you here.
-Thank you so much.
Now
Let me
-Wait right there.
-Silently?
Oh, yak it up. Whatever you wanna do.
I'll be right back.
By the way, this is something
that has never happened to me,
never will happen to me.
I don't know what's going on! [laughs]
[cheering]
[laughs] What do you want
me to do with it?
Me!
-Me!
-You don't?
Yeah, go ahead!
-Are you serious?
-Drown me!
-Are you serious?
-And then
And then these folks!
[audience cheering]
-Are you sure?
-Yeah!
-[cork pops]
-Oh!
[audience cheers]
Oh, my goodness!
Don't hug me!
-[Letterman] God bless you, my friend.
-[Hamilton] Thank you so much, man.
Lewis Hamilton, ladies and gentlemen!
Good night, everybody!
Oh, buddy!
How about this kid!
[audience cheers]
There you go.
Pass it around!
That was so good.
Thank you very much. You all right?
-Yeah, good. You?
-Yeah, delightful.
[theme music playing]
[tires screech]
[crowd cheering]
[laughs] I mean, come on!
[theme music playing]
Do I go this way?
Oh, yeah. "To stage."
-Hi, how are you?
-I'm good.
[man] I'm gonna get
the audience ready to go.
-Give a little spiel and get ready.
-[David Letterman] Okay. Spiel?
[man] Roll a spiel. The old spiel.
I'm doing a spiel.
I'm trying to get them to buy real estate
in Florida.
[women laugh]
A spiel!
[cheering]
Thank you very much. Thank you.
My name is Ray.
I quit smoking with Chantix.
[audience laughs]
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen.
It's a pleasure to be here.
And, please, I pray to God
you didn't pay to get in here.
Just tell me
I was at dinner last night with my family,
and I said to my son Harry--
Anybody have kids? You got kids, right?
Everyone has kids?
-Any--
-[scattered applause]
Wow! The enthusiasm is overwhelming!
"Boy, do we have kids."
[audience laughs]
And I said to Harry, I said,
"Now, people may ask me
about you when I'm there,
so I'm gonna say a couple of things
about you, Harry."
And he puts up his hand and he says,
"Those people have no right
to know anything about me."
Anybody have a 15-year-old kid?
Are they just loaded with snark
and ready to go?
I mean, periodically,
he takes a swing at me.
-Does that ever happen at your house?
-[audience laughs]
So, if you see him,
please, dear God,
I don't need any trouble at home.
Boy, this
Do you know who's here tonight besides me?
[audience] No.
Well, the disappointment's
about to wear off because
Now, I know the name of this show is
My Next Guest Needs No Introduction,
and I think that's true.
Perhaps not absolutely true here,
but around the world.
And at the end of the evening,
if we all haven't had a good time,
you know, I'll fight everybody.
Ladies and gentlemen, do me a favor now,
please welcome Formula 1
five-time world champion,
Lewis Hamilton. Lewis!
[audience cheering]
-[Letterman] How are you? Good to see you.
-How are you?
I'm great, thank you.
-Wow.
-Thanks a lot for having me.
-How you doing?
-I'm great.
-Please, have a seat.
-Thank you.
-This is a thrill for me.
-Wow.
I've loved racing
I'm from Indianapolis.
You can't not love racing
-if you're from Indianapolis.
-Of course.
Let's talk about the numbers
of your career.
Seventy-three wins now?
-Seventy--
-I don't know.
I really don't know.
It's something like that.
Five world champions.
-Yeah, I know that one.
-Yeah.
[laughing]
When you're in the city of New York,
walking down the street,
do people say, "Oh, my God,
there's Lewis Hamilton"?
-No! [laughs]
-What do--?
What do they do?
Do they have an idea who you are?
Hmm, no, not too many.
Yeah. Well, we have that in common.
[audience laughs]
Have you ever been pulled over
in your road car?
-Unfortunately, yeah.
-Yeah.
Well, the thing is, back in the day,
you know,
probably in the '80s,
it would've been cool.
"Well, no wonder, he's a racing driver.
Of course he's gonna speed on the road."
Do that today, you're viewed so much more,
there are kids watching you, so
My dad used to always say,
"Don't speed,"
'cause he was always speeding.
Honestly, I'm really chilled on the road.
I don't particularly enjoy driving,
so I don't drive a lot.
[audience laughs]
Racing, I like.
[laughs] That came out wrong.
No, racing-wise
I love the racing part,
but there's no competition
when you're on the road,
and, also, you know, there's a lot of
crazy drivers out there on the road.
You'll see an older person come by,
up on the steering wheel like this,
and I'm like,
they've got no control up here.
I'm nervous about people's
My surroundings.
It's the old story,
a guy gets pulled over,
"Uh, you know how fast you're going?"
"Who do you think you are?
Lewis Hamilton?"
-I had that.
-Yeah. See?
I swear, I had that in London one time,
but I wasn't speeding,
my car just made a lot of noise.
So, I got flashing lights behind me.
And he came to the window, like, "Who
do you think you are? Lewis Hamilton?"
And he looked down,
and he's like, "Oh, jeez!"
[laughing]
It was really cool.
That's keen.
You're really into the cars, so I know
you have a fairly decent collection?
I have some cars.
You know, I'm not Jay Leno,
but I have some cars.
[audience laughs]
In the '60s, Jack Brabham, Jackie Stewart,
Graham Hill, and all of
these other European F1 drivers
came to Indianapolis,
and that's really when I fell in love
with all forms of that sport.
[Lewis Hamilton] Which one is your
favorite-- IndyCar, NASCAR, Formula 1?
I don't want to offend people,
but I'm just gonna take NASCAR
and set that aside.
Okay.
[audience laughs]
I appreciate that. [laughs]
How long have you been
racing cars for already, Lewis?
About a year.
-Is it easy to do?
-No.
And we have a winner!
[Hamilton] My parents separated
when I was two,
and I grew up with my mom
till I was about eight,
and then I spent the weekends with my dad
and he had no idea what to do with me.
Kind of, "What do I do with this kid?"
So, we started racing
radio-controlled cars.
I was the youngest there by at least ten,
15 years, and I was beating everyone.
Then my dad had an idea
to put me in a go-kart,
so he bought me a go-kart,
which was fifth-hand
from the back of a newspaper.
We went to the local DIY store,
drove it around after-hours.
And loved it, naturally,
and we found a race course nearby
and started to go there and practice.
And we had absolutely no idea
what we were doing.
I always relate my life a lot
to Cool Runnings. It's my favorite movie.
And
Honestly, that's really my life story.
Basically, we arrived at the track,
and like in the movie,
they arrive at the top of this hill
with this rusty bobsled,
and the whole paddock goes quiet.
Like, "What are they doing here?" And that
was really how I remember it being for us.
We turned up in this car,
which my dad took a lot of pride in,
and it looked great.
But the go-kart was hanging out the trunk.
And he was pushing me down,
just like in the bobsled, they get in
and the coach pushes them down the hill.
That was my dad.
My first race, I won.
People were a little bit shocked by it,
but we just continued to do it.
-[siren wailing]
-Excuse me, my ride is here.
[laughs]
I knew that would happen.
[go-kart engines rev]
[Letterman] You're a kid, eight years old.
So, there you are,
most kids are on a tricycle or a bicycle.
You're now in a go-kart.
Well, for me, it's quite a deep thing,
because I was a smaller kid.
I struggled at school,
I was bullied up until that point.
And I get in the car,
and I was good at something.
And my dad, like, recognized that,
and he was like
And he would support me with it, so
that was where we really truly connected,
and I get in the car,
and I could stand up for myself.
Not everyone was particularly welcoming.
You know, we didn't see any other people
of color there.
Yeah. And what about now?
If you, when you go back
to watch karting events,
is there greater diversity now?
There is. You know, it's
You know, not just black,
there's Asians,
it's a real, real mix,
people from different walks of life.
I've got Indian families
come up to me and say,
"Oh, my son wants to do
what you're doing."
I've got white, I've got Mexicans.
All people come over to me,
and I feel like
perhaps we've kind of broken that mold.
That's tremendous.
[go-kart engines rev]
[Letterman] So, you're Chloe?
Yes.
-You're Christian?
-Yes.
Do you guys know each other?
-Yeah.
-Yeah.
-Do you race--?
-We race locally together.
Do you win races?
-Yeah.
-How many races have you won?
Too many to count.
Whoa!
-Too many to count!
-[coach] Yeah. There you go.
Man! How about you?
About five, I'd say.
Five? Pretty good.
What is your goal with motor sports?
I want to be in F1.
-Formula 1?
-Yeah.
There's more women involved in racing
now than ever before.
But there's only 20 drivers, really,
active on the Formula 1 grid.
You're aware
that this is a long shot, right?
-Yeah.
-Yeah.
-But I can do it.
-Yeah.
I want to do it.
Who's your favorite driver?
Lewis Hamilton.
Lewis Hamilton?
Go-kart is where he started, you know?
-This is where everybody starts.
-Yeah.
This track looks enormous
and daunting.
We come through this chicane?
Yeah, we come through the chicane,
and then
you come up to the hairpin.
I remember, one time,
when I was racing
and there was a chicane
that you weren't supposed to lift,
you were supposed to take flat-out.
And I couldn't do it.
I always had to lift.
Now, what does that say to you?
-[Chloe] That you're scared?
-[Letterman] I don't have-- Yeah!
Yes, I was scared! Good answer.
The car is designed so you go
flat-out through that chicane.
It's supposed to handle better
when you're right on the limit.
-Does he know what he's talking about?
-Mm-hmm.
-So, that would be your advice to me?
-Yeah.
Just let the kart do the
-[Christian] Yeah.
-[Chloe] Let the kart do the work.
Trust the kart. All right. Well,
that's kind of the motto for the day.
Now, what about blocking?
Now, seriously,
I'm gonna tell you something,
I'm blocking.
Nobody's coming by me.
I will not be lapped.
I may finish last,
but I'm not gonna be lapped, okay?
I'm just putting you guys on warning,
-do you understand me?
-Yes.
I'm getting a little hot
talking about it now.
But, you see, we're kinda taught
how to deal with those people
-who block excessively.
-Oh, now I'm one of "those people"?
They just gotta get knocked right off.
Okay, here, I wanna go on record
as saying, right here and right now,
I'm not moving over.
Because the ignominy at my age
-could be crushing, do you understand?
-[both laugh]
[engine revs]
[clanking, whirring]
[Letterman] Hey.
No cowboy stuff, all right?
I'm 100!
[Chloe laughs]
[Letterman] Is somebody gonna start me?
[engine starts]
-Oh.
-Hey.
-Got someone in the wall.
-Dave.
Definitely a New York City driver.
Yeah, I got confused.
[laughs] I looked back and then
I didn't see you, and I was like
-What? And then
-What happened to him? Yeah.
And when I looked back again
and I was going down the straight,
-you, like, spun out over there.
-Yeah, I spun out twice.
I hit the barrier once,
and I think the thing is busted.
-Were you worried?
-Um
-Hmm.
-Yeah.
How about you? Scared?
[Chloe] Sure.
Yeah.
You knew you had
a crazy man out there, right?
Your driving was so confusing,
I didn't know what emotions I was feeling.
[Chloe laughs]
But see?
That's how I get in your head, son.
That's how I get in your head, my friend.
I know your father made great sacrifices
on your behalf,
and I think I read that at one point
he had three jobs
-because karting--
-Three or four, Dad?
-I think it was four.
-Make it eight. Nobody's gonna check.
[Hamilton] This is the problem,
-it's so expensive as a sport.
-That's what I was gonna say.
What are we talking about if a kid
has a medium setup?
There's a trailer and a team.
What is that gonna run a kid?
Well, I mean, today,
I believe it's all about teams.
There's no place for people like us,
where we started
and it was just in the back of the car.
I think my dad said,
in the first year--
You know, it wasn't just my dad,
it was my stepmom. They both
sacrificed all the money they had,
all their savings,
re-mortgaged the house multiple times.
-Kinda crazy.
-Re-mortgaged the house multiple times?
Yeah. I mean, it sounds kinda crazy,
but there's a lot of people in the world
who do want that success
for their children.
-But it doesn't always happen.
-Doesn't always happen.
So, your dad is working
just virtually around the clock,
getting no sleep.
He would leave at, like,
5:30 in the morning, go to London,
you know, get the train to London,
then he'll come back.
He wouldn't get back
till, like, eight o'clock.
He wouldn't even really,
he'd probably spend 15 minutes eating,
then he'd be in the garage fixing my kart
till one o'clock in the morning,
and then he'd be back out again.
I just didn't understand how he did it.
Now, where you are,
five-time world champion,
looking back on that circumstance,
what are your feelings about that?
Naturally, as I get older,
I appreciate it more and more.
-Yeah.
-You know, my dad didn't have new clothes.
I mean, he still, today, doesn't
have new clothes, but there's just
You know, just--
You know, they could have been
going on holidays,
you know, saving up, doing great things
for themselves, but they never did that.
Let's have your father--
Anthony, do you mind standing up
so people can get an actual look at you?
So
You can sit down now, Dad.
Come on.
He came through
the airport this morning,
the guy said, "Is this your brother?"
I was like, "Damn it!"
[Letterman] Yeah!
[Hamilton] They say black don't crack,
so I'm hoping that I've taken on some
of those genes! [laughs]
How do I look?
Well, you know,
I've been thinking, the beard
-Ah?
-I'm envious of it.
-Well!
-No, 'cause I can't grow
-This is as far as I can go.
-You'd be--
But you look fantastic.
Oh, well, you're very kind.
And I think, for a guy pushing 100,
I don't look that bad.
I think you look great!
[Letterman laughs]
I don't wanna sound like an old guy,
but here's something you'll learn
when you have your family,
that being in a business with your son,
at that formative age,
for as long as you guys did it together,
both of you loving it
Every father on the planet
would take that
-relationship with their son.
-Of course.
[tools whir]
Set the front wheels down, Lewis, please.
I thought we had a mechanic in here
last night cleaning this kart up.
No.
[man] Lewis, what do you reckon's
the best thing about kart racing,
-if you just had to say it in one word?
-Speed.
Just love the speeding bit.
This is posh compared to
-our day 20-odd years ago.
-Is that right?
[Anthony] When we started racing here,
I remember, you know, 36 kids on the grid.
And I used to think, "Well, what's
going to mark us out as different?"
'Cause everybody's coming round,
braking at the same points
and accelerating at the same points.
So, I said to Lewis, "Tell you what,
why don't we brake 100 foot later
than someone else?"
It caused a lot of problems,
because Lewis kept crashing into people
on the first time we tried it.
I said, "All right, Lewis, brake here."
And he'd come zooming past
the normal braking points
and flying off the circuit.
And at the time,
where it's all nicely manicured now,
that used to be just mud and water,
and he used to end up in the water.
Eventually, he'd get the braking right
and he'd come round this bend,
and we're zooming
straight past these guys.
-All of a sudden, we're winning races.
-Yeah.
This is my favorite part
of the whole deal.
Tell us what you knew about racing
-at that point in your life.
-Absolutely nothing.
Absolutely nothing!
I used to say to people, "I've just
put Lewis out on a four-poster bed,"
because I don't know
what tire pressures are,
what the sprockets were,
how tight the chains should be.
You muddle along
and you make things work,
but, you know,
Lewis used to make me look good,
-put it that way.
-Well
And I think it's because of everything
that I didn't know,
-he learned, you know?
-Yeah.
And you didn't always get along, did you?
You know, when we started,
it was family fun time.
But then it got to a point,
very, very quickly, where it was like,
"Blimey, Lewis is good."
-Yeah.
-I had to get serious.
Because, you know, sometimes, you can
mollycoddle the kids,
and you can say, "Yeah, that was great."
They've just come last
and you tell them, "You were brilliant."
Well, you know, if he came second,
I used to tell him how bad he was.
Oh.
Because you can always do better.
So, at a certain point, your duties
as a manager, contracts, sponsorship,
-that kind of thing.
-Yeah.
And then there was a break.
-You're no longer his manager.
-Yeah.
And was that a mutual decision?
-Definitely not. No.
-Not.
How did that make you feel?
Broke my heart.
-Broke your heart?
-Yeah.
From the time he started,
at eight years of age
we used to have a father-son
"Be careful, love you
do the best you can," handshake,
every time he went out on the race.
And in 2010, that was it.
It all just stopped.
You're breaking my heart.
-Yeah, it was hard.
-Yeah.
We didn't communicate for
probably that year and the second year.
You and your son didn't talk for--
-Yeah. A long time.
-Oh, no.
Yeah. Several years on,
I look back on it and I think,
he was looking for himself.
I wouldn't so much say
it was that he broke my heart,
-but my heart was broken.
-Sure.
[Anthony] It was a moment
that you knew was gonna come.
[Letterman] What did you know?
It's like taking your parents to work.
[Letterman laughs]
You know, so
Yeah, that's pretty much
all you need to know, yeah.
I mean, I pushed hard,
whether it was good for me
or bad for me
with my relationship with Lewis,
because I didn't want him to fail.
And so I never allowed myself to waver.
I never said, "Oh, chill, relax,"
you know, "Let's not do this."
It was always full on, because
I can see the brilliance in Lewis.
And I still can.
I think we both say that the best memories
that we have,
winning the first
British Championship in 1995.
And we left in this
rust bucket RV that we had
that wouldn't go beyond 40 miles an hour.
And we were racing against a wealthy kid,
and they had everything,
they even had a team, they had
He had many karts,
and he paid this guy, like, £5,000 a day
to mechanic his car,
and my dad was my mechanic,
and this guy's wheel fell off
in the last race.
-Ah!
-And it was just great.
We left singing,
"We are the champions of England."
-And you know
-[audience applauds]
It was cool.
I'm sorry to fixate on the relationship
between your father and son--
No problem.
My son,
I love him dearly,
but we don't have the relationship
that you and your father had,
and the fact that it was successful
for both of you is so gratifying,
and then that it came apart,
I think, makes perfect sense.
And everything's good now?
Yeah. I'm really, really excited
about this Christmas.
This is the first year I'm having my dad,
my stepmom and my mom at Christmas Day,
so that's been, you know
[audience applauds]
I'll be alone at the Golden Corral.
[laughing]
[Letterman]
You had a deal with Ron Dennis at 13.
At 13, I had a paper route.
But you were making money.
I wasn't making money, so
Well Yeah, I was making good dough.
All those paper boys, making great money.
How did the folks at McLaren hear
about you?
You introduced yourself to Ron Dennis
when you were ten?
When you win a championship, at the end
of the year, there's an awards ceremony.
I remember we couldn't afford a suit
for me at the time, so we borrowed one
from the kid that won the previous year,
this green velvet suit.
-And it fit perfect.
-That's great!
You borrowed it from last year's winner.
[laughs]
[Hamilton] It was really cool.
And my dad got this little booklet,
and it had the space for an autograph,
number, address and email.
So, I went over to Ron, I was like,
"Hey, I'm Lewis Hamilton,
and one day I wanna be
a world champion in your car."
-Wow.
-And he wrote in my book,
"Phone me in nine years,
I'll give you a deal."
He then followed me the next few years,
which I won the next three championships,
and I got home from school one day,
I was 13, my dad's like,
"Ron Dennis just called
and offered us a sponsorship deal,"
and I was like "Oh, cool."
-[Letterman] Yeah.
-[audience laughs]
[Hamilton] And growing up,
Ayrton Senna was my favorite driver,
and he had three world titles.
He was the guy I wanted to be.
And I told Ron Dennis,
"I wanna race for you,"
because Ayrton raced for him.
[Letterman] What was
the great appeal of Ayrton?
Because when he died
a great portion of the world stopped.
[Hamilton]It really did,
particularly in Brazil.
People came out onto the streets,
a lot like Princess Diana.
But I think it's really how he carried
himself, and how he defied the odds.
He was very outspoken.
And a bit of a brat on the track.
I disagree. I think he was just
He wasn't a pushover.
He really stood up for his values
and his beliefs.
I would've done the same.
Have you been to the site in Imola?
Yes.
Being there was
crazy for us, you know?
To be on the track knowing
that Ayrton had raced there before
and driving past the area
in which he had his incident.
It was very emotional, I would say.
Now, how do you deal with that then,
when you're
driving past? How do you deal with it now?
How do you deal with it every race?
How does your family deal with it?
How do your competitors deal with it,
the factor of danger?
For me, it's never been something
that I particularly consider,
or think about.
I just-- I love racing.
I'm kind of an adrenaline junkie, so
of course I respect it,
and I know that it's there.
That's the exciting thing.
If there was no danger, we wouldn't do it.
I will say that open wheel racing
is much safer,
statistically, now than it maybe has been
at any other time.
-Is that true?
-Yeah, particularly after his crash.
A lot of focus
and a lot of money went into safety.
And every year, they introduce a new car.
By the way, I saw that
you just recently had a seat-fitting.
-Is that true?
-Yes.
How did your seat fit?
It didn't.
-It didn't fit?
-My suit didn't fit, and
my seat didn't fit that great, no.
It was the seat that I've been
using all year, as well.
Now, what? Explain that.
Well, once you get past the last race,
you start eating more.
[laughing]
You said you're starting to train now?
Yeah, so in these races,
we lose up to ten pounds in a race.
-So, four kilos.
-I'm sorry, ten pounds?
-Yeah.
-And this is from what?
Just heat? G-forces?
-Tension?
-G-force, your body's constantly tense.
The speeds we go through these corners,
we do 180 miles an hour
through some of the-- Bless you.
[laughing]
I've got really good hearing,
-I can't help it.
-Yeah, nice.
Yeah, so, the G-force
you go through these corners,
your body wants to go
the opposite direction,
and we pull up to six times our weight.
The head weighs I can only do kilos,
I can't keep doing pounds.
If your head weighs,
you know, close to ten kilos,
and you're pulling six times,
-60 kilos through a corner on your neck.
-On your neck, yeah.
And how do you train for that?
Are there specific bits of equipment
that are used
to get your neck strong, or?
Yeah, for your neck. So, I have a helmet
that's made of lead, basically.
I think it's 15 kilos that it weighs.
And you just lay off the edge of a bench,
bed, and you do multiple reps.
But then, otherwise, it's just cardio.
Anyway, we start training,
getting into shape through January
and then testing start--
I'm at the factory
at the beginning of February.
And you're there a lot, you know,
studying the new car,
understanding what tools you have.
The tools are constantly evolving.
My goal is to be
the driver that's most on top of it all
by the first race.
You're an athlete.
There's no question of that.
And then the mental aspect of this sport
is way beyond
well, I think, what it used to be.
People like me,
watching on television or in the stands,
you just see guys going as fast
as they absolutely can go.
No, everyone I talk to, they're like,
"Yeah, but you're just
sitting on your backside."
-[laughs]
-It's so technical.
And it is probably too technical today.
I really wish that you could all feel
what I feel in a Formula 1 car.
We can all go and try and be LeBron James
and get a swoosh.
But you can't go
and get in a Formula 1 car
and feel the forces that I--
There's no way of even
You've just gotta imagine it.
I have a radio mic.
I have to make sure it's off, but I'm
I'm yelling a lot in the car
through excitement,
as you would on a roller-coaster ride.
It's not cool, but it's so much fun!
[laughing]
[Letterman] So this, today,
the introduction of the new car,
is the beginning of your 2019 season,
-isn't it? Yeah.
-It is.
I literally just saw the car
coming together last night.
-They were building last night.
-Still building.
And today's the first time
that I get to drive the car.
The first lap of that new car,
what information do you get out of that?
It's like meeting someone
for the first time, you know?
You come in a little bit apprehensive,
you're a little bit unsure
-of what the person's gonna be like.
-You're talking about me now?
Yeah, it's just literally the same
as meeting someone new, you know, and
you see it and it looks great,
the person is great,
but then you get to understand
their character.
And, you know,
you're strapped into this rocket,
and bit by bit, you start
building this relationship with it.
[Letterman] God, look at all this stuff!
Yeah, wait till you see the new one.
This is nothing.
[engine starts]
Oh, wow!
That's delightful, isn't it?
[laughs] I mean, come on!
For years,
I've been trying to get a hold of a car
that sounded that way
just to upset the neighbors.
And then I found out that,
to upset the neighbors,
I don't need a car.
In my years of being involved
and associated with racing,
I've come to the conclusion
there's really only one person having fun,
and that's the guy driving.
When you get in this car,
and you have the halo,
and you have the seat fitted to you,
I've read that it's so comfortable
that you don't like to be in it
prior to the race
because you might doze off.
No, that's not the case.
I like dozing off.
Sleep is the best thing ever.
In the car?
Yeah, that's probably
the most comfortable I am.
The seat is very snug.
And it's warm. They have these radiators
and the hot engine behind you, so
you go out and do your qualifying lap,
it's like doing a sprint
and then coming back,
and your heart rate decreases real quick,
-and then you fall asleep.
-What--
So I keep my visor down, because
I don't want the camera to catch me.
-What is your resting heart rate?
-Probably in the low 50s, probably?
-50 beats a minute?
-Probably.
-Resting heart rate?
-Probably in the low 50s.
That's pretty good.
It's all right.
And then at the height of a race?
Probably get up to 180, 190 in qualifying.
It's quite intense for one lap, so you
But over a race, you can't keep that up.
You have to be strategic.
If you pushed 100%,
you wouldn't make it
to your first stop, so,
you have to pull back a lot.
A good pit stop lasts
two-and-a-half seconds?
Two seconds? Three seconds?
The best pit stop now,
I think, is 1.7 seconds.
Four tires off, four tires on.
Yeah, so, they've done away
with that needless waiting around.
-Yeah.
-[audience laughs]
It's
-kinda crazy.
-It is kinda crazy.
And how many people are over the wall?
There's, like, 23 guys.
So, they're like bowling pins.
And you're coming down the pit lane
at 80 kilometers an hour,
and if you don't get it right,
you'll take them all out.
They always say that there's
not enough passing in Formula 1.
-Because we have too much down force.
-Yeah.
The forces which our wings produce,
they're basically like a plane has lift.
Yeah, they always say, if you could do it,
you could get a Formula 1 car
to stick to the top of a tunnel,
driving upside down, because
it produces so much suck to the cement.
80 miles an hour,
you can put it on the roof of a tunnel
upside down and it'll stay there.
Well, let's do that.
[audience laughs]
Have a part that goes upside down,
in the middle of the straight?
-Now, you're talking!
-Yeah! [laughs]
As I understand it,
your Formula 1 career,
the power plant has always
been Mercedes, am I correct?
It has, yes.
So, you know Mercedes inside and out.
-Yeah.
-Yeah.
A friend of mine named Bobby Rahal,
who's a partner of mine in racing,
I overheard him talking to a guy
about Mercedes-Benz
making a 700-horsepower station wagon.
And I said, "Holy crap!
I gotta get me a 700-horsepower
station wagon,"
because you never know
when you got to get to Costco in a hurry.
[laughs]
-You know?
-Well, just confirm something to me,
so, a station wagon, what is that?
-In England, we don't have station wagons.
-Oh, I'm sorry, it's a
Pick-up truck?
[laughs]
Which one is the station wagon? SUV?
No, it's where you put
all the kiddies in the back.
-SUV?
-Just the younger brother of the SUV.
-Okay.
-Station wagon,
you pick people up at the station.
I see, okay. [laughs]
Okay, now they do versions
of a 700 rate horsepower, yes?
-That's right.
-So, you got it?
-Not anymore.
-Okay.
So, it's now winter time,
and there's snow.
My wife has to go shopping in it.
So, she takes it and I say, "Enjoy it.
People are gonna go crazy
when they see you in this station wagon.
700 horsepower--"
-In the snow?
-Yeah.
So, she comes home and she says,
"I'm in the parking lot at CVS.
I can't stop doing donuts."
[laughs]
And I, because I think
I know everything, I said
So, me and Harry go out in it,
and it's like Holiday On Ice.
I mean, it's Ice Capades.
We're everywhere.
-Of course.
-It's just all over the road.
And the thing is all-wheel drive.
So, is this a complaint
to Mercedes, or?
Yes!
[laughing]
Yes! This is as close as I can get!
[laughs]
So, I take it back to the guy
and he says, "Oh, don't worry,
these cars are in such demand,
we'll sell this tomorrow."
And I said, "Oh, thank God."
And I said, "What don't, uh--"
Well, what would you say
I don't know about driving that car?
Did you have snow tires on it?
[sighs]
[audience laughs]
That's what the guy said.
[laughing]
I told him the story and I said,
"Why can't I drive it?"
And he said, "You need snow tires."
And I thought, "Oh, my God.
An all-wheel drive--"
But, honestly, that's a lot of power
and that's--
You don't need that when it's
it's picking up people
from the station, you know?
[laughs] No, see,
that's where you're wrong.
When you're picking people up
from the station,
-you need that kind of power.
-[laughs]
So I felt like a complete boob,
because I thought,
it must snow in Germany.
And they don't seem
to have any problem with it.
And I've seen commercials
where Santa is driving one.
[audience laughs]
Where was it? Was it in the city?
No, it was up where I live.
But, in Germany, they've got a great
infrastructure, so when it does snow,
they've got grit down, they're prepared.
You're very polite,
because I know what you're thinking is,
"That dumb-ass can't drive."
[laughing]
Why have we got a station wagon?
This is the one we talked about.
I had one of these for a weekend.
It's not a race car.
You do realize, right?
This is one where you can have the dogs
and the family in the back.
That's right.
But it's, like, 700 horsepower.
Yeah, but so is a race car.
-How was your day?
-It's been good, up until now.
Stop that.
Now, you got the steering wheel
really close to you
-I like it. I like it like that.
-Really?
It sounds nice.
Okay, let's go for it.
This is the one I couldn't drive in snow.
You show me where to brake.
You should brake now.
Now.
-Brake.
-Tight.
[tires screech]
-Whoo!
-[laughing]
[Hamilton] Go!
-[Letterman] Brake where?
-Brake.
-Hard?
-Off the brake. Turn in.
-[tires screech]
-[laughing]
Yeah, buddy!
Now, get on the power. Unwind.
Whoa! Shoot!
Sorry!
You don't turn too aggressively.
You want to be flowing.
Oh, you're talking to the right guy.
-Keep going.
-I can't!
-No, I'm not doing that again!
-Let's keep going.
-Keep going!
-I'm not gonna do that again!
No! Here's where I'm braking!
-[engine revs]
-[tires screech]
You gotta brake harder.
-Oh, really?
-Yeah.
Man alive.
Well, do I get my license?
-I wouldn't give you a Super License yet.
-Oh, come on, give me a Super License.
How about a beginner's permit?
Yeah, you definitely get
the beginner's permit.
I'm alive!
Thank you, Jesus!
We were in Florida,
racing these kids, karters.
I said to this little girl,
"Do you brake at the end of the straight?"
and she said, "No,
you have to let the kart do it for you."
I feel like, if I do that,
I'm giving up control.
-That's what you have to do, though.
-Yeah.
-That's what the kid said, exactly.
-Just like this girl says.
-You have to trust in the car.
-Yeah.
-[engine revs]
-[tires screech]
Yes!
[Hamilton] So, we're gonna see
how hard you can brake.
Well, this is about what I was doing.
-Did you light up the tires back there?
-No.
Oh, man! You're gardening there!
-It's about using all the track.
-You gotta use the whole track.
Excellent.
Now, I'll tell you where to brake here.
Tell me when to brake.
Now! [laughs]
-[tires screech]
-Oh, buddy!
I'd like to point out
that I never got it that sideways.
Now, yeah. Get the curb.
Whoa! You about turned it over.
All right, just let it unwind.
There you go.
Okay, just hit the curb.
All right, maybe not quite that much.
Oh, I'm telling you,
beautiful job on the curb.
Okay, now brake here.
All right, now let it unwind here.
Whoa! [laughs]
Oh, man, is that good!
Okay, get ready to brake. Yeah.
[Hamilton] Oh, the brakes are not working.
-You've cooked the brakes! Listen to this!
-[tires screech]
-[Hamilton] We've got no brakes.
-Are they gone?
-Yeah, they're not working anymore.
-Yes!
Yes!
Let's see if they work.
Oh, shoot! They're literally on fire.
-Oh, yeah.
-They're on fire.
[laughs] Oh, crap. They're on fire!
-[Letterman laughs]
-[engine revs]
[Hamilton laughs]
I don't have my
-Seat belt on.
-Oh, okay. That's good.
[tires screech]
-[engine revs]
-[Letterman laughs]
Oh. That was amazing!
Shut down Disneyland.
Shut down Six Flags over Poughkeepsie.
This is what you need to do.
Oh, my God.
And it smells good.
-That's when the brakes are on fire.
-Jesus. Yeah.
The brakes were on fire!
That is usually the biggest shock
to people when you go out,
you don't realize
how hard you hit the brake.
Look at my neck.
Have you ever seen
a more powerfully built man?
I don't feel anything.
How many Gs are we pulling?
Ten? 15?
[laughing]
We might have got, like, one,
-on the braking.
-Uh-huh.
And in Formula 1, we'd pull up to six.
Six,
seven, whatever it takes.
This is the most fun
I've had in my entire life.
Michael Schumacher is certainly
the most successful driver
-in Formula 1.
-Yeah.
He has seven world championships?
Is that what you want?
Will you not feel comfortable if you
don't get seven world championships?
At least tie, or do you wanna try eight?
Michael retired when he was 38.
I'm 33, so, I mean, in my mind,
I can definitely do five years.
And the fact now that you've done five,
doesn't mean you're gonna win two more,
doesn't mean you're gonna win one more.
But I am ridiculously
-determined to win.
-[laughing]
I'm gonna win next time.
No, you're not.
You tried to overtake somebody
on the outside on that bend.
-Yeah.
-You nearly run off the track, didn't you?
No.
Dangerous move that is, Lewis.
Well, there's only one lap,
it was the last corner.
Oh, was it? Oh, right,
that's fair enough then.
Last lap. Gotta do it
on the last lap, haven't you?
[Hamilton] What really drives me,
and I feel somewhat the people
that race against may lack
is that fire, that when were young,
and just how hard they had to work.
I've got this opportunity that I could
easily let go of it right now,
but I'd feel like I would be
squandering it if I didn't continue
to improve, grow and push.
So I gotta keep going
for as long as I can,
till I'm not enjoying it.
How do you know
when you're not enjoying it,
because it looks like
at least the way you do it,
nothing but fun.
It's definitely not just nothing but fun.
You know, it's
It's a hard, hard year. Mentally,
you have these massive highs
of these wins and success, and then
you have these massive comedowns.
Something I've never really spoken about,
but, like, you often do suffer
from mental issues,
instabilities,
and keeping that through the year,
keeping yourself together
when you hit rock bottom,
which you do, as an athlete.
-Yeah.
-If you're lucky, you can find
there's still strength
within, at rock bottom.
And that's where you
You know, so it's about how you get up,
not how you've fallen.
You posted, I'm paraphrasing,
sure, it's a tough day,
maybe you're not feeling great,
-but keep your head up and keep going.
-Yeah.
And that little gesture
was a huge thing for people.
The thing is,
we all really do have a platform.
It doesn't matter if you have
five followers or millions.
-You know, we all have a voice.
-I have five followers.
[laughing]
Gosh, you're a tremendous kid.
-Oh, thank you.
-I have great affection for you,
and great admiration.
-I appreciate it. Good to have you here.
-Thank you so much.
Now
Let me
-Wait right there.
-Silently?
Oh, yak it up. Whatever you wanna do.
I'll be right back.
By the way, this is something
that has never happened to me,
never will happen to me.
I don't know what's going on! [laughs]
[cheering]
[laughs] What do you want
me to do with it?
Me!
-Me!
-You don't?
Yeah, go ahead!
-Are you serious?
-Drown me!
-Are you serious?
-And then
And then these folks!
[audience cheering]
-Are you sure?
-Yeah!
-[cork pops]
-Oh!
[audience cheers]
Oh, my goodness!
Don't hug me!
-[Letterman] God bless you, my friend.
-[Hamilton] Thank you so much, man.
Lewis Hamilton, ladies and gentlemen!
Good night, everybody!
Oh, buddy!
How about this kid!
[audience cheers]
There you go.
Pass it around!
That was so good.
Thank you very much. You all right?
-Yeah, good. You?
-Yeah, delightful.
[theme music playing]