The making of a Formula 1 legend, Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton is the newest and best Formula 1 driving sensation to come out of Britain for the last few years. Having started racing at a very young age, Hamilton had one of the best rookie seasons of all time. He was also the youngest Formula 1 champion in the history of the sport. This fascinating young man has gone from strength to strength over his first two seasons and looks all set to become a huge super star in motorsports in the future. Currently in the middle of the 2010 season, Hamilton is facing tough competition from all sides but he should come out of it with a strong finish. The next few years will be testing ones for the young driver and we will get to see what he is capable of.
Lewis Hamilton was born into a modest family in England in 1985. He showed an interest for racing early in his life and started racing go-karts at the age of 8. At that young age Hamilton won the McLaren Mercedes Champions of the Future series and started to impress people in racing circles. A story states that at the age of ten, Hamilton met Ron Dennis, who was the owner and director of the McLaren Formula 1 team, and told Dennis that he was going to race in Formula 1 one day. That meeting must have made an impression on the McLaren owner because three years later Hamilton was signed up for the McLaren Young Drivers Programme. The racing team supported him throughout his karting and early racing career and then took him on as a fulltime driver in the 2007 season.
McLaren have really supported the talented British driver throughout his career and their gamble paid off because he won the driver’s championship for them and turned out to be a fantastic asset. Hamilton’s rookie season was a phenomenal one and in fact it was the best rookie season in 40 years of the sport. He held nine podium finishes in the first nine races of his inaugural season and he won two of those races. He almost won the entire series but mistakes in the last two races cost him the title and he finished second overall. He went on to win the Championship in the 2008 season and became the youngest driver to do so in the history of the sport. He was impressive in 2009 as well but he will really have to prove himself in the current season that is underway because of stiff competition from all sides.
Hamilton’s career has not been without controversy though. As he is a young talented race car driver, he is constantly in the media spotlight. His relationship to Pussycat Doll, Nicole Scherzinger, has been followed with religious fervour in gossip magazines of the UK. Maybe it is because the couple are both good looking, very famous and in the public eye that people cannot seem to get enough of their lives. Their every movement is recorded and analysed and there were rumours that they were breaking up and others saying they were back together. Hopefully people will concentrate on his racing and less on his love life in the future.
Last year, Hamilton and McLaren were both penalised for deceiving race stewards. During the Malaysian Grand Prix, it seems the driver and his team lied to race stewards. The story went that with a few laps left in the race, a crash occurred which led to the safety car being deployed during which time overtaking is not allowed. Jano Trulli, who was in third position slid off the track and McLaren seemed to give Hamilton instructions to let Trulli pass him when he came back on the track. This way it would seem that Trulli had overtaken Hamilton and he would get some points deducted. When Hamilton was asked about it he apparently lied to stewards and told them that he did not intentionally let Trulli pass him. The team was docked its podium finish and the six points it would have earned, but the real damage was done to both the team and the driver’s reputations.
Hamilton is a very talented driver and he will be the one to watch in the years to come. Hopefully he can stay out of trouble long enough to become a true legend of the sport. Maybe we could help by letting him live his private life as he chooses to and concentrate on his racing career only.
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