Lewis Hamilton Biography

Lewis Hamilton burst on to the scene in 2007 in a contentious year at McLaren. He has since become a World Champion and bright light in a bland Formula 1 field.
 
Lewis Hamilton is the first black driver of significance in Formula 1. If he must carry the mantle, he is doing it well. Hamilton is a very aggressive, very talented driver who can always be counted on to try to make the impossible pass or, at the very least, drive the wheels off the car…sometimes literally! He can be very controversial, but is always exciting.


Hamilton was born in 1985. He famously approached then McLaren President Ron Dennis at the age of 10 and told him that Hamilton wanted to drive for McLaren one day. A scant three years later, he was signed to the team’s young driver program at the age of 13. Since then, he has been a rising star for the team winning three championships in the minor leagues.
 
In 2007, Hamilton was finally given his seat with McLaren. The team has always made odd pairings when it comes to drivers and this season was no different. For some reason, they mixed the young alpha male with Fernando Alonso, the two time defending champion. Predictably, sparks flew and things got very ugly, very quickly. Hamilton performed remarkably on the track, but faded badly the last few races when he made rookie errors that were very embarrassing.
 
2008 saw things improve dramatically. Alonso left under mutual agreement and Hamilton became the clear number one with his friend Heikki Kovalenien taking second seat and second fiddle at the team. Hamilton had a brilliant three quarters of the season before fading a bit again at the end. In perhaps the most dramatic finish ever, he beat Felipe Massa of Ferrari by one point when he passed a slick shod Timo Glock on the last lap of a rainy Brazilian Grand Prix for his first championship.
 
Hamilton was touted for a run of glory, but it has not happened. The problem has not been the driver, but McLaren. The team seems to have shown some serious cracks. The 2009 car was horrifically slow and bad, a problem that was compounded when Hamilton and a team member were found to have lied to Stewards in the opening race of the year. Things went from bad to worse as the car was so bad it would often not make it out of the first session of qualifying.
 

2009 has seen a bit of a resurgence by McLaren. The team is the third fastest on the grid, but Hamilton has shown he is becoming frustrated and rightly so. He has been aggressive and brilliant in his driving, but not received much in the way of results. After driving to a brilliant second place in Barcelona, his front rim failed two laps from the end to deprive him of points. It was the second such failure he has had with the team while no other driver has had such a problem during the last three years.

There are drivers who win the world championship because of their cars and then there are real World Champions. Lewis Hamilton is clearly a part of the class of Alonso, Schumacher [in his prime], Vettel [in the future], and Kubica [if he can find a car] that are worth the price of admission to watch race. It is not really a matter of whether Hamilton will win more championships, but how many?
 
The real question may be whether he does it with McLaren. The team has lost Mercedes as a partner and there are signs it is falling off the pace. The strain in communications between the driver and team are apparent, which makes the future a bit murky. I, for one, believe he will leave the team at some point. The best drivers tend to do a turn with Ferrari at one point or another. Perhaps he will replace Alonso when the Spaniard is done with his turn. We can say with some confidence they won’t be there at the same time!
 
Lewis Hamilton brings a bit of controversy on himself, but he is a brilliant driver in my estimation. I’m not a fan of McLaren, but one can never deny the talent of this driver and he is still incredibly young. Four or five championships are not out of the question for him in the future, which is so very bright.

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