Nicolas Hamilton’s defiant step up to touring cars

20-year-old Nicolas Hamilton could be on the grid in this year’s five round FIA European Touring Car Cup, if all goes well at a test next week behind the wheel of one of Special Tuning Racing’s SEAT Leóns.

Hamilton, whose fame mostly comes of course from being the half-brother of 2008 Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton, has spent the last two seasons racing in the Renault Clio Cup UK series, one of the support events on the British Touring Car Championship calendar.

Although for an able bodied racer his results would be considered modest at best, for one who suffers with the neurological condition cerebral palsy, they can only be considered as exceptional. Finishing 14th in the standings in his debut season, one spot ahead of his Total Control Racing team-mate and ex-BTCC racer Mark Proctor (who admittedly missed one round) was a great achievement. Nicolas’s best finish was ninth place at the season finale at Brands Hatch, but last year the results dropped off a little and he finished in 21st position in the standings. It should be noted however the level of competition in the 2012 season was markedly stronger, with an average of 23 cars per race as opposed to 17 in 2011.

Is the jump into a top level touring car championship too soon for Nicolas? I think the question first has to be asked what more is there for him to learn in the Clio Cup. I see comparisons made between Nicolas Hamilton, who has to race with a specially adapted car, with a moveable seat and non-conventional pedals and a hand-operated clutch, to Alex Zanardi’s predicament, racing a modified BMW between 2005 and 2009 in the WTCC, but those comparisons are simplistic at best.

Zanardi was a highly experienced racing car driver, with over 25 years of experience through karting, Formula 3, Formula 3000, Champcar and Formula One behind him before his tragic accident at the Lausitzring in 2001. On entering a round of the European Touring Car Championship in 2003, a mere two years after his accident (it’s important to note this is the forerunner to the World Touring Car Championship and not the same series Nicolas Hamilton is looking to enter this season), Zanardi was impressive from the start and was able to take four wins in the WTCC before BMW reduced its programme in 2010, leaving him out of a drive, though very much to the 2012 London Paralympics’ benefit.

Zanardi’s car was also modified, running a semi-automatic gearbox and hand-operated accelerator, with a single pedal for braking. Zanardi’s race-craft was already honed, and the modifications to the BMW 320si compensated for a good proportion of the limitations he now faced racing with no legs.

Hamilton’s case is different, for one he’s still learning just how to be a racer, but the limitations he has racing with cerebral palsy cannot be so easily countered (and I really want for a better word there than ‘easily’). In reality, these will never be overcome, but he can continue to learn and push forward like any driver can, and do the best job despite his condition.

Perhaps a more obvious move would have been the British Touring Car Championship, given he’ll already be familiar with all the circuits, but arguably the attention that he would receive in only his third year of racing would be quite overwhelming in what’s a very high profile motorsport series in the UK. Also, the driving standards in BTCC aren’t revered as being the best in the world. The front-runners themselves have their off days, in the back half of the pack they’re nothing but feral on most weekends, and dealing with constant bumping and battle damage won’t really help Hamilton become a better driver.

The World Touring Car Championship’s driving standards are far cleaner, but also the level of competition is quite high. Though the top drivers in either the British or World Championship could well compete with each other, a BTCC backmarker would probably be chasing the tail of the WTCC pack on any weekend. That kind of experience would be no use to Hamilton either, so the European Touring Car Cup actually seems like a sensible in-between ground.

The ETCC’s five event calendar is a relatively small programme, and its multi-class structure is quite unique in sprint racing, which could also play into Hamilton’s favour. Competing in the top tier Super 2000 specification car like the SEAT León could mean that even on a bad weekend, he could be fighting in the field with the lower class Super 1600 or Single Make Trophy cars.

It’ll put him in a good position to learn a few of the tracks on the WTCC calendar if that’s where his 2014 ambition lies, and given the competition which can be expected in the ETCC, a worthwhile points position is not out of the question, with a number of drivers not even able to make the whole season last year.

Of course Hamilton’s appearance will also be good publicity for the relatively unknown series. Mostly a single event in its earlier years, recently the ETCC has been reinvented as a feeder series into the WTCC as that Championship spreads its wings and heads further away from Europe. The ETCC previously featured big names such as Jason Plato, James Thompson, Fabrizio Giovanardi and the aforementioned Alex Zanardi, among a few others, but last season almost all the drivers were not well unknown, either young drivers working their way up towards the WTCC or regulars from the German ADAC Procar Series.

At the moment of course, all Hamilton’s doing is testing the car. The car will need to be fitted with modified controls as well as restore the 2.0 litre normally aspirated engine, as the TDI engine, which has helped the León dominate the event in the past three seasons, has been outlawed. The 1.6 turbocharged engines used in the WTCC also aren’t eligible for the ETCC. If the test goes well and a full season programme does come out of this, hopefully he’ll be able to prove his doubters wrong and put up a good fight in the ETCC.