The 2000s was a bizarre decade for F1, full of fights and scandals.

Teams pushed the technical boundaries, such as BAR, found guilty of running a second fuel tank, whilst McLaren was thrown out of the 2007 constructors’ championship and fined $100 million for Spygate.

And they were before the debacle of Indianapolis in 2005 that shredded F1’s image in the US.

In this particular story on Lewis Hamilton, we head back 14 years and look at the controversial opening race of the 2009 season in Australia in which Brawn GP debuted and incredibly claimed a one-two finish that provided the platform for Jenson Button’s title-winning campaign.

It was the first race under new major aerodynamic rules that had de-cluttered and simplified the cars, with Brawn’s double-diffuser stealing the headlines. Whether it was legal or not remains a debating point to this day…

At the time, Ferrari and McLaren had fumbled the regulations after pouring so much into the 2008 fight. The F-60 and MP4-24 were both awful at the start of the year.

Hamilton, in his first race as reigning world champion, at least finished third after overtaking Jarno Trulli’s Toyota under a late safety car after the Italian had skated off the track.

That was fair enough, but what followed led to ‘Lie-gate’ and Hamilton being disqualified and a long-serving McLaren employee being sacked. 

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The ‘Lie-gate’ scandal

After a crash between Sebastian Vettel and Robert Kubica late in the race, the safety car was deployed, leading to what turned out to be only the second safety car finish in F1 history.

Behind a Brawn GP one-two spearheaded by Button, Trulli crossed the line third ahead of Hamilton. However, it was suggested that the Italian had passed the British driver under safety car conditions to claim the final podium place.

A stewards’ investigation found this to be true, resulting in Trulli being hit with a 25-second time penalty that resulted in Hamilton taking third spot, whilst Trulli was demoted to 12th.

But this was far from the end of the matter as there were additional suggestions Hamilton had been told over team radio to allow Trulli by, which Hamilton obligingly did so on the exit of Turn 4.

Hamilton and team manager Dave Ryan, however, said no instruction was given.

At the next race in Malaysia, an interview was discovered that contradicted their claim. Radio communications proved Hamilton had lied to the stewards, under instruction from Ryan. He had clearly told the Briton to let Trulli through.

Hamilton was promptly disqualified from the Australian GP, and the team was hit with a suspended ban from the FIA, providing no similar incidents occurred again.

Ryan was sacked for misleading the stewards, whilst a repentant Hamilton apologised to the stewards and media.

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Hamilton almost quit

Years later, Hamilton conceded he almost quit F1 in the aftermath. “It was a lot to deal with after everything that had happened,” he revealed. “I care a lot about the way people look at me.

“I thought, ‘Hey, maybe I shouldn’t be here in this sport’. But McLaren is my dream team and I should count myself lucky to have raced here since the beginning of my F1 career.

“I’ve never wanted to drive for another team, so at that point it wasn’t a desire to leave the team, it was just to stop racing. For a moment I thought, ‘This is too much to handle. How do I come back from this?’.”

But the people around Hamilton knew how to get him through it.

“I love racing, but I just didn’t know … sometimes it’s just hard to deal with the consequences. It’s hard to deal with people who, as soon as you turn your back on them, immediately talk about you. It created negative energy and I don’t like that.

“However, I quickly realised that it wasn’t just negative energy and that I received a lot of support and respect.

“That made me stronger. It was an extraordinary experience. I can’t predict the future, but I love the sport, I’ve always said that. I love winning, in a fair way. Integrity is very important to me.”

It was an experience, it is fair to say, Hamilton learned a considerable amount from.