Sir Lewis Hamilton's Biography

Who is Sir Lewis Hamilton?

Lewis Hamilton was born on 7 January 1985 in Stevenage, England.

In September 2006 Lewis Hamilton won the GP2 title, the F1 feeder series.

In November 2006 it was announced that Lewis Hamilton would drive for McLaren in F1 in the 2007 season.

Hamilton became the first black driver to race in Formula 1 and in the opening Grand Prix of 2007 - the Australian Grand Prix - Lewis Hamilton made an impressive start to his Formula One career, finishing in third place.

In his next two races, Bahrain and Malaysia, Hamilton came second and thus became the first man to take podiums in his first three Grand Prixs. With Lewis Hamilton's fourth race the story got even better. He came second in the Spanish Grand Prix, thereby securing the outright championship lead. The fairy tale continued for Lewis Hamilton when on June 10, 2007 he won the Canadian Grand Prix. It was just his sixth Formula One race.

In his very next race, the United States Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton won again. Lewis Hamilton became only the fourth driver in their debut F1 season to win at least two races.

The others were Jacques Villeneuve, Nino Farina and Juan Manuel Fangio.

Lewis Hamilton's amazing first season in Formula 1 continued, however it ended in disappointment after he finished only seventh in the last race of the season, the Brazilian Grand Prix, that saw him lose his championship lead to end up second to Kimi Raikkonen in the drivers' championship.

However, Lewis Hamilton made amends the following year when on 2 November 2008 he became the youngest world champion in Formula One history after finishing the season just one point ahead of Felipe Massa.

Hamilton started young. At just six he was featured on Blue Peter in charge of a remote controlled car. At 10 Lewis Hamilton won his first British Kart championship. Lewis Hamilton has won every series in motor sport that he has entered.

Before the decision had been made to give him his break at F1, Lewis Hamilton told The Telegraph:

"Being the first black man doesn't matter much to me personally, but for the sport itself it probably means quite a lot."

Lewis Hamilton has been with McLaren-Mercedes since he was a youngster, and their profile of their young star lists his motor sports achievements to date.

Lewis Hamilton's official website had this quote from Norbert Haug of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport after he had secured the GP2 title: "This is the greatest day in Lewis's career so far and after Formula Renault and the Formula 3 Euro Series the third important Championship he has won in the last four years at the age of 21. We have known Lewis since he was a little boy and Ron [Dennis] had the idea that both McLaren and Mercedes should support his racing programme starting with karting nine years ago. Since then Lewis has become a real part of the family ..."

Lewis Hamilton went out with Pussycat Dolls singer Nicole Scherzinger, however they broke up after a couple of years.

On 10 March 2009, Lewis Hamilton collected his MBE from the Queen.

After the Australian Grand Prix, the first Grand Prix of the 2009 season, Lewis Hamilton and McLaren were stripped of their points, for, according to the FIA, "providing evidence deliberately misleading to the stewards".

On 26 July 2009, Lewis Hamilton won his first grand prix of the season, winning the Hungarian Grand Prix. Hamilton ended up fifth in the 2009 FIA Formula 1 drivers' world championship standings, having won the most points of any driver in the second half of 2009.

On 14 March 2010, Lewis Hamilton started the new F1 season with a third place in the Bahrain Grand Prix. On 14 November 2010, Lewis Hamilton ended the season with a second place at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, which meant that he finished the season in fourth place, 16 points behind the 2010 world champion Sebastian Vettel.

On 17 April 2011, Lewis Hamilton gained his first victory of the season in the Chinese Grand Prix. His next victory was not until 24 July 2011, when he won the German Grand Prix. 2011 proved a difficult season for Hamilton. However, in November 2011, he won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. On 29 July 2012, Lewis Hamilton gained his second victory of the season, when he won the Hungarian Grand Prix.

In September 2012, it was announced that Lewis Hamilton was leaving McLaren and had agreed a three-year contract to drive for Mercedes from the following season.

In July 2013, he had his first win for Mercedes, when he won the Hungarian Grand Prix. He finished the 2013 season fourth, behind Vettel, Alonso and Webber.

Although the first race in 2014 went badly with Hamilton retiring from the race, he then went on to his second drivers' world championship culminating with a victory in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the end of the season on 23 November 2014.

On 25 October 2015, Lewis Hamilton won his third Formula 1 World Championship after he won the United States Grand Prix.

Only Schumacher, Fangio, Prost and Vettel have won more titles.

It was his tenth victory of 2015.

In 2016, Mercedes had a great start to the season. After Hamilton's victory at the Canadian Grand Prix on 12 June, the standings were Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) first with 116 points, Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) second with 107 points and their nearest rival was Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) on 78 points.

His subsequent wins in 2016 included winning his fourth British Grand Prix.

On 23 October 2016, Lewis Hamilton won his 50th Formula One GP, when he won the United States Grand Prix.

He followed up immediately by winning the Mexican Grand Prix and the Brazilian Grand Prix, which meant that Lewis Hamilton had 52 GP wins thereby overtaking Alain Prost (51) making him the second most successful race winner ever with only Michael Schumacher in front on 91.

Lewis Hamilton also won the last GP of the season at Abu Dhabi, but it was not enough to stop his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg from taking the season's F1 title, five points ahead of Hamilton in second place.

Lewis Hamilton in 2017

Hamilton started the 2017 season with a second place in Australia and a first in China.

On 11 June 2017, Hamilton won the Canadian Grand Prix.

On 16 July 2017, Lewis Hamilton won the British Grand Prix for the fifth time, a record number shared by just Alain Prost and Jim Clark.

On 2 September 2017, at the Italian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton gained a record-breaking 69th pole position and dedicated his record to Michael Schumacher.

On 17 September 2017, he won the Singapore GP.

He had another win the following month in Japan, thereby taking a lead in the title race of 59 points with 100 available in the remaining four GPs.

Lewis Hamilton also won the next Grand Prix, the United States GP, taking him 66 points clear of his nearest rival Sebastian Vettel.

On 29 October 2017, Lewis Hamilton won the world title for a fourth time.

He finished ninth in the Mexican GP after colliding with Sebastian Vettel in the opening lap.

Vettel only managed to finish fourth, which was not enough to prevent Hamilton from winning the title.

Lewis Hamilton in 2018

On 28 October 2018, Lewis Hamilton finished fourth in the Mexican Grand Prix.

It was enough to secure his fifth F1 title to become the equal second most successful driver in history along with Juan Manuel Fangio, only behind Michael Schumacher's record of seven titles.

Lewis Hamilton in 2019

On 17 March 2019, Lewis Hamilton came second to his Mercedes colleague Vaitteri Bottas in Australia, however a fortnight later the positions were reversed in Bahrain with Hamilton first and Botas second.

On 9 June 2019, Hamilton won the Canadian GP. It was his fifth win in seven races in 2019.

On 14 July 2019 he won the British Grand Prix for a record sixth time.

On 27 October 2019, he won his 10th GP of the season at the Mexican Grand Prix.

On 3 November 2019, Lewis Hamilton secured his sixth world drivers' title when he gained second place in the United States Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton in 2020

On 19 July 2020, he won the Hungarian GP. It was his 86th victory.

On 2 August, he won the British Grand Prix. Towards the end of the race he had a puncture, and in the final lap Hamilton had to drag his car home on three wheels.

He then won his next GP, the Belgium Grand Prix. It was his 89th overall and 5th out of 7 races.

Lewis Hamilton quickly followed up with his 90th win - this time an incident packed race at the Tuscan Grand Prix.

In October 2020 Hamilton surpassed Michael Schumacher's record of Formula 1 race victories when he won the Portuguese Grand Prix - his 92nd.

In November 2020, Lewis Hamilton secured a seventh World Championship with victory in the Turkish Grand Prix on Sunday.

Hamilton thereby equalled Michael Schumacher's achievement in terms of titles, after already surpassing Schumacher's number of race wins.

Soon after, it was revealed that Lewis Hamilton would miss the Sakhir Grand Prix in Bahrain after testing positive for coronavirus.

Lewis Hamilton in 2021

On 18 July 2021, Lewis Hamilton won his eighth British Grand Prix. He had a collision with title leader Max Verstappen.

It was a sign of things to come as the rivalry between Hamilton and Verstappen dominated the season right to the very end when the latter pipped Hamilton to the title after winning the final Grand Prix in controversial circumstances in Abu Dhabi. 

Also in December 2021, Lewis Hamilton was knighted.

Switch

In January 2024, it was announced that Lewis Hamilton was to leave Mercedes and join Ferrari in 2025.

On 7 July 2024, he won the British GP. It was his first victory since the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

In December 2024, he ended his 12 years with Mercedes with a fourth-place finish in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Trivia
In September 2017, the BBC published an article about how and why Lewis Hamilton is becoming a vegan.

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