Vettel can do, he has the car and the team. Hamilton can fret about not doing, because he doesn't.
You can criticise Hamilton's starry eyed take on the vacuous world of celebrity, but that's a different issue.
I don't think it's a different issue. They are intertwined. Lewis's problem is, he wants to leave a great legacy, be famous, loved and admired by everyone. But that's not what F1 is about. It's not a popularity contest. He seems to have lost focus. He thinks too big. He thinks about winning multiple championships instead of focusing only on winning the next race.
Now he's better known for his celebrity exploits rather than his results on the track. If he keeps it up, his legacy will be that of an entitled celebrity or similar to Mansell's, who is known as a fast, aggressive driver who wouldn't stop moaning and crying that the whole world is against him. That's not the kind of legacy I want Lewis to leave.
I think on the long run it would have been better for Lewis to start, as other drivers, in a backmarker team. Then no one's expectations would have been as high, including his own.Came across an interesting comment on another site:
Lewis' debut in F1 turned out to be a major handicap to his success. No rookie had ever been identified, as a young boy, by a top F1 team and groomed so attentively. He arrived, on the scene, in the glaring spotlight of the best thing ever for F1. On his way to break all F1 records. The publicity, adulation and expectations went ballistic. To make the point, that he was not just the rookie of the year but the "rookie of all time", he was paired with Alonso but was given superior status, within the team, to the 2X WDC. That silly political mistake ended up handing the 2007 WDC to Kimi by one point (KR - 110, LH - 109 and FA - 109). Lewis simply did not struggle enough to break into the sport. By contrast, at the same time, an unknown BMW test driver was walking up and down pit lane begging for a seat. Then, when Kubica had his big crash in Montreal 2007, this unknown got his break and did at least as well as Kubica in the very next race. He was immediately picked up by Toro Rosso and gave them their first, and ONLY, victory, hardly anyone noticed, they were too busy discussing Hamilton's love life and the relationship to his dad. Then the unknown was snatched up by Red Bull. He gave them their first ever victory, something both Webber and Coulthard had failed to do. And the rest,as they say, is history.
The first thought was that in a few decades, it could make a good movie on someone's legacy. But with the way things are going, I'm afraid not Lewis's.