LEWIS HAMILTON TAKES RACING TO A NEW LEVEL
Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton was born on 7 January 1985, and is a worldwide favourite British racing driver competing in Formula One for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team.
Hamilton began karting in 1993 at the age of eight, at the Rye House Kart Circuit, where he quickly showed off his talent and began to win races and cadet class championships. The youngster then drove for Martin Hines's Zip Young Guns Karting Team, where he developed his skills by the age of 12. He progressed through to Junior Yamaha in 1997 and 1998, and won an additional Super One Series and his second British championship.
Right after his win, McLaren Formula One team boss, Ron Dennis, spotted his talent and signed Hamilton to the McLaren driver development programme, which included an option of a future Formula One seat, which he did get in 2007 – making him the first and only black driver in the sport.
Hamilton began his official professional car racing career in the 2001 British Formula Renault Winter Series and, in 2008, he won his first F1 World Drivers' Championship with McLaren before signing to the Mercedes team in 2013.
Hamilton evolved more in the sport and won a further five titles with the Mercedes team, his six titles include a total of 88 race victories. In his career he also obtained records, such as the all-time most career points, the all-time most pole positions, the all-time most podium finishes, the most grand slams in a season and lastly the most points in a season.
In his first season with the Silver Arrows, Hamilton secured a sole race victory, winning the Hungarian Grand Prix, where he converted an unexpected pole position into a winning margin of over 11 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Kimi Räikkönen.
In 2014, Hamilton secured an overall of 11 wins of the 19 races for his Mercedes team. That year also allowed drivers to pick a unique car number to use for their entire career. Hamilton elected to drive under his old karting number, 44, for the remainder of his career. Although Hamilton was given the option to change his car number to 1, he still continues to race with his career number 44.
In 2015, Hamilton dominated the racing season as he claimed 10 victories. With his great success, Hamilton extended his contract with Mercedes for three additional years in a deal reportedly worth more than £100 million, which made him one of the best-paid drivers in Formula One.
In signing the additional extension, the deal allowed Hamilton to retain his own image rights, and keep his championship winning cars and trophies.
Hamilton who is currently a six World Champion holder, is focused on achieving his goal in beating all time favourite, Micheal Schumacher’s record of seven World Champion titles.
Seeing that Hamilton has already started the season with remarkable results, he is on a head-strong path of obtaining that seventh World Champion title.