December 12, 2021 saw an unexpected turn of events. A daring young driver, Max Verstappen, managed to dethrone a seven-time champion of the world, Lewis Hamilton. However, the story is not that simple. Many have termed it as the dark day in Formula 1’s sporting history. Max and Lewis entered the last race of the season tied at 369.5 points. Hamilton led most of the race on his course to win the 8th championship, but a crash of Nicolas Latifi and race director Michael Masi’s last-minute call changed the course of history. According to many experts and fans, Lewis was “robbed” of a title after Masi allowed the grid to go racing in the last lap. Max, on newer tires, overtook race leader Lewis to win his first title.

The utter shock and disbelief brought an astonishing amount of grief over Lewis. He went off the grid after the race and unfollowed everyone from Instagram. Imagine a rockstar of a driver due to whom the niche sport found its identity in arenas like Hollywood and across borders away from it all. He took that break to mentally process the injustice that happened to him. But how else did he overcome the darkest phase of his life? But first, let us understand what Lewis felt about the whole situation.

“Was I robbed? Obviously”: Lewis Hamilton believes that Abu Dhabi 2021 did not have a fair outcome

Though F1 and FIA gave a verdict of “Human Error” by Michael Masi. The result of the race was not reversed, and the wounds were still wide open and Lewis believed that he was robbed. The controversial choices made by race control at the time still feel sour to Hamilton. Talking about possibly the most painful moment of his life, he said, “Was I robbed? Obviously. I mean, you know the story. But I think what was really beautiful in that moment, was my dad was with me. And we’d gone through this huge roller coaster of life together, ups and downs. And the day that it hurt the most, he was there.”

He added, “The way Hamilton dealt with his loss at that moment has been decisive for a lot of things, he tells himself. “The way he raised me was to always stand up, and keep your head high. And I obviously went to congratulate Max, and not realizing the impact that that would have, but also I was really conscious of, like, there’s a mini-me watching. This is the defining moment of my life. And I think it really was. I felt it. I didn’t know how it was going to be perceived. I hadn’t, like, visualized it. But I was definitely conscious of: These next 50 meters that I walk is where I fall to the ground and die—or I rise up.” But how did Lewis overcome an event that can haunt lesser beings for years to come?

Lewis Hamilton’s offtrack brilliance saved him from a breakdown

In 2018, Hamilton partied in New York to celebrate his first collection then flew to Singapore and delivered the best lap of his glorious career. He faced everyone’s, including the late Niki Lauda‘s (triple F1 world champion and senior advisor at Mercedes) displeasure at his “other ventures”. But Lewis never backed down. He only grew stronger in his expression of his love for fashion. To add to that, his love for all things music is another one of his talents. The Mercedes driver also took a plunge to be a singer the same year as he hid behind an alias ‘XNDA’ on Christina Aguilera’s 2018 track, ‘Pipe’ from her Liberation album.

The list of his talents doesn’t end there. His Hollowood ventures are also an addition to the roster. Hamilton has recently donned a producer hat. Talking about his journey as a producer of the coveted F1 movie, he said, “We were there from the beginning. There were a couple of scripts out there. I had known Joe [Kosinski, the director] from when we talked about doing Top Gun: Maverick through Tom [Cruise]. Tom put me in touch with Joe, and there were discussions of being in the movie. And then we just stayed in touch. Then we all reconnected to talk about potentially doing a Formula 1 movie. And then we went through this whole process of working with a writer.”

Why am I listing all of this? That is because Lewis said in an interview that “creativity saved him” and that is why enumerating all these ventures in which Lewis excels as much as he does on track is a way to answer the daunting question of how his all-rounder personality saved him.