Lewis Hamilton – A Champions Profile

Hamilton began his car racing career in the 2001 British Formula Renault Winter Series, finishing fifth overall. This led to a full 2002 Formula Renault UK campaign with Manor Motorsport. Hamilton finished third overall with three wins and three pole positions. He remained with Manor for another year and won the championship convincingly with ten wins. But his debut appearance in British Formula Three was less successful – Hamilton crashed out of both races at the Brands Hatch season finale, being taken to hospital after the second.
Hamilton and Manor then made their debut in the 2004 Formula Three Euroseries. They won just one race and Hamilton was fifth in the championship. He also won the Bahrain F3 Superprix, race one of the Macau F3 Grand Prix, and had his first test in a McLaren F1 car in December that year. He defected to reigning Euroseries champions ASM for the 2005 season and dominated the championship, winning 15 of the 20 rounds. He also won the Ultimate Masters of Formula 3 at Zandvoort .
After the season, British magazine Autosport featured him in their “Top 50 Drivers of 2005” issue, ranking Hamilton 24th. This success led him to join ART Grand Prix for the 2006 GP2 Series season.
Despite stiff opposition from rivals, Lewis duly won the GP2 championship at his first attempt. Among his notable performances was a dominant win at the fifth round held at the Nurburgring, which he won after serving a penalty for speeding in the pits.
 
As early as 1994 Hamilton had introduced himself to McLaren team boss Ron Dennis, at that Year's Autosport Awards, asking if he could drive for the team in the future.
In 1998 he was signed to the McLaren Driver Development Support programme. The contract included a future option on an F1 seat making Hamilton, 13 at the time, the youngest driver ever to have an F1 contract.
His 2006 GP2 championship coincided with a vacancy at McLaren following the departure of Juan Pablo Montoya to NASCAR and Kimi Räikkönen to Ferrari.
After a long period of speculation of whether he, Pedro de la Rosa, Gary Paffett, or even Mika Häkkinen would drive for McLaren alongside World Champion Fernando Alonso for the 2007 Formula One season, Hamilton was confirmed as the team's second driver.
He was told of McLaren’s decision on September 30th, but the news was not made public until November 24th, for fear that it would be overshadowed by Michael Schumacher’s retirement announcement.
Hamilton is the first driver with prominent African or Caribbean ancestry to compete in Formula One, although Willy T. Ribbs tested a Formula One car over 20 years ago.
Hamilton started testing for McLaren in Spain in November 2006, and was occasionally quicker than Pedro De La Rosa and the rest of the field.
On his debut at the 2007 Australian Grand Prix, he qualified 4th on the grid and finished 3rd in the race. This made him the 13th driver to finish on the podium in his Grand Prix debut (excluding those in the first ever World Championship round), the last being 1997 World Champion Jacques Villeneuve eleven years earlier.
As we go to print, out of 14 Grand Prix starts, Lewis has 3 wins, 11 Podiums and 97 Points to lead the World Championship in this, his first ever season.
1   Lewis Hamilton        97
2   Fernando Alonso       95
3   Kimi Räikkönen       84
4   Felipe Massa            77
5   Nick Heidfeld           56
6   Robert Kubica          33
7   Heikki Kovalainen    22
8   Giancarlo Fisichella  17
9    Nico Rosberg            15
10  Alexander Wurz      13