Biography

Lewis Carl Hamilton born in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England on January 7, 1985 is a British Formula One (F1) driver. Hamilton started racing at the age of 8 with karts. When he was nine, he met McLaren F1 team boss Ron Dennis at a ceremony and told him he would drive for McLaren one day; four years later, Hamilton was signed to the McLaren driver development support programme. Hamilton became European karting champion in 2000 with maximum points and made a successful transition to racing cars the following year. He progressed through the junior formulae, achieving titles in Formula Renault, Formula 3 and GP2. He was appointed as a Formula One driver for McLaren in 2007. In his first season in the top international single seater category he finished second behind Kimi Räikkönen.

Personal and early life
Hamilton’s paternal grandparents emigrated to the United Kingdom from Grenada in the 1950s. His grandfather worked on the London Underground. His mother Carmen and father Anthony, (who is now an IT consultant), named him after the US Olympic gold medal winning athlete Carl Lewis. Hamilton’s parents separated when he was two and, until he was ten, he lived with his mother. After that he lived with his father, step-mother Linda and half-brother Nicholas who has cerebral palsy.
Hamilton’s first taste of racing competition came at the controls of radio-controlled cars. Father Anthony bought him one in 1991, and Hamilton finished second in the national BRCA championship the following year. Hamilton said of the time: “I was racing these remote-controlled cars and winning club championships against adults”. That led to Hamilton sampling kart racing for the first time. Aged six, his father bought him his first go-kart as a Christmas present, and would support his racing career as long as he worked hard at school. When supporting his son became problematic Anthony Hamilton took redundancy as an IT Manager and became a contractor - sometimes doing up to three jobs at a time to support his son’s career - and still found enough time to attend all his races. He would later set up his own computer company, as well as working as a manager for Hamilton on a full time basis.

Records
Hamilton has matched or set the following records in Formula One:

• Most consecutive podiums from debut race: 9 (previous record was 2)
• Most consecutive podiums for a British driver: 9 (tied with Jim Clark)
• Youngest driver to lead the World Championship.
• Most wins in a debut season: 4 (equalling Jacques Villeneuve’s record from 1996)
• Most pole positions in a debut season: 6

Hamilton is the first black driver to compete in Formula One and the first black driver to win a major race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in any discipline. In addition, he is the third youngest driver to achieve an F1 pole position, and the fourteenth F1 driver to achieve a podium finish on his debut.
Lewis Hamilton’s contract for the McLaren driver development program made him the youngest ever driver to secure a contract which later resulted in an F1 drive.

Posted by admin July 2007