MY TOP 20 BRITISH F1 DRIVERS - Number 11

LEWIS HAMILTON
WORLD CHAMPION - 2008
GRANDS PRIX - 35
WINS - 9
POLE POSITIONS - 13
POINTS SCORED - 207
--- F1 CAREER ---
2007 - McLaren Mercedes - Equal 2nd - 109pts
2008 - McLaren Mercedes - 1st - 98pts

You may be wondering why i have put the new golden boy of British motorsport so far down the list of my top 20 British F1 drivers, well the reason is simple, he's only been racing for 2 seasons and he has'nt done enough yet to break into my top 10, but there is scope for the future, he is young he is extremely talented and can achieve a lot more in the future, enough hopefully to earn a higher placing in my opinion.

Anyway, about Lewis, this young man from Stevenage in Hertfordshire is unique in a way as he is one of the few drivers that did not come from a wealthy background which is often needed to break into the sport, infact he was brought up by his parents on a council estate and also had to suffer his parents splitting up when just a 2 year old, once moving back with his dad Anthony, his stepmother Linda, and his disabled brother Nicholas who suffers from cerebal palsy and who Lewis himself calls his inspiration because his brother (like his early racing career) triumphed over adversity against all the odds.

A young Lewis Hamilton first caught the national attention at the age of 10 when he attended the Autosport awards in 1995 to recieve his British Junior Karting championship trophy and it was here when he had his first (and now famous) meeting with McLaren team boss Ron Dennis when he uncannily walked up to meet him and proclaimed he would drive one of his cars soon, Dennis funnily enough gave him his number and told Lewis to call him back in 9 years to sort something out.

His call would come much much earler, infact just 3 years later when Lewis won the British Junior Championship for the 2nd time, Dennis signed him up on the spot on McLaren's junior driver scholarship. With McLaren backing, Hamilton progressed through the karting ranks at an incredible rate progressing to European Formula A level (the top level at Karts in Europe which is now known as KF1) at the age of just 15. This would be the first time he would meet future F1 rival and good friend Nico Rosberg, son of the 1982 champion Keke, racing as teammates, they blew away the opposition, well all except the dutchman Carlo Van Dam who beat both of them, despite that Hamilton was awarded a BRDC Rising Star medal for 2000.

Hamilton had already done enough to secure his first single seater drive in Formula Renault UK for the 2002 season with Manor, while Rosberg wento ff to race Formula BMW in Germany. Lewis had an unspectacular first season as he struggled to get to grips with the new more powerful machinery, he would eventually win 3 races in the 2nd half of the season and go on to finish 3rd in the standings behing eventual champon Danny Watts. With a years experience, he blew away the opposition the next year winning half the races to take a commanding first championship honour ahead of Alex Lloyd, Lloyd would get the consolation of beating him to the prestigious McLaren Autosport prize.

After a bad debut in British F3 and improved showings in the Macau Grand Prix of 2003, Manor decided to graduate to the newly formed F3 Euroseries for 2004 with Hamilton joining them along with dutchman Charles Zwolsman, it was both a gamble and a hinderence as the Manor team would enter with a 2 year old Dallara Mercedes package. But Hamilton had a great 1st season despite the chassis disadvantage, after a slow start, Hamilton shocked the opposition with a battling win on the streets of Nuremberg, his first international racing victory and he never finished outside the top 7 in each of the final 8 races giving him 5th in the championship behind his friend Rosberg and way behind the eventual champion and fellow countryman Jamie Green.

Despite the promise of an up to date car for next season, Hamilton decided to take up an offer to drive for the series leading squad ASM for 2005 where he would meet for the first time another good friend and rival Adrian Sutil as teammate. Just like in Formula Renault UK, he used last years experience to great effect with the difference being this time he was driving for the best team on the grid, as a reuslt, Hamilton astonishingly went on to rip apart the record books by winning 15 of the 20 races, scoring 172 points which helped him finish 78 clear of Sutil and a huge 109 clear of future F1 star Sebastian Vettel.

The next step up was GP2, the official Formula 1 feeder series. Hamilton's friend Nico Rosberg won the title the previous year thus earning an F1 drive with the Williams team, Hamilton would replace him at ART, the team run by Nicolas Todt, the son of Ferrari boss (at the time) Jean Todt. Crucially for Hamilton, he would have an experienced teammate in the form of Alex Premat and this would be important as Hamilton eventually broke his trend of winning titles at the 2nd attempt by winning at the 1st attempt here, but unlike in Formula Renault and Formula 3, his title win was no walk in the park as he endured a season long battle with the Brazilian youngster Nelson piquet jr, winning eventually with 1 race to spare by 12 points.

But speculation over a possible early graduation to F1 with McLaren started way back in mid-season when McLaren's number 2 driver Juan Pablo Montoya made the shock decision to quit and move to NASCAR, this left a vacant seat alongside the new world champion Fernando Alonso for 2007, Hamilton (due to his connections with Ron Dennis) was offered a test and the chance of a drive against Gary Paffett and Pedro De La Rosa (the latter stood in for Montoya for the 2nd half of the season scoring 20 points.) Hamilton eventually won the drive.

Any hopes Hamilton had for a quiet debut season were gazumped by the attitude of the British media becuase of his presence in one of the sports leading teams, it was very difficult for him to focus himself on the task at hand which would be at first to aid Fernando Alonso to a possible 3rd successive world title against Ferrari's all new lineup of Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen. He had a spectacular debut finishing on the podium in Australia before producing an excellent rear-gunner drive to hold off the Ferraris allowing Alonso to win, this would be when relations between the 2 would be at their peak. He lost out to Felipe Massa in Bahrain despite a late race charge but a 2nd place in Spain meant he created history by becoming the youngest driver ever to lead the championship.

The good times would not last though and the seeds of dissention between the 2 drivers first came to ahead in the next race at Monaco, McLaren doninated taking a 1-2 finish but Hamilton was incensed at not being allowed to race teammate Alonso for the win, the team survived a "team-orders" hearing afterwards and the result stood. Hamilton made up for his disappointment with a dominant performance in a chaotic weekend in Canada, Hamilton coasted to an easy win as chaos erupted everywhere else, Alonso ran the final 3rd of the race on the wrong tyres and finished way down in 7th, Alonso, clearly rattled by Hamilton's performance began to suspect whether the team were favouring Hamilton and this was apparent when a faster Hamilton tried to pass Alonso at the next race in Indianapolis, he defended his position as if he was racing for a rival team, Hamilton went on to take another win with Alonso again way back.

More podiums followed in France and Britain but his luck would soo change after that, a nasty crash in qualifying at the Nurburgring meant he could only finish 9th while Alonso won. And it was qualifying again which nailed everybody's suspicions about team morale, Alonso blocked Hamilton in the pitlane to prevent Hamilton from setting a quick lap, Alonso as a result was penalised 5 places on the grid and the McLaren team were deucted 15 points in the constructors championship, Hamilton went on to win. Then Hamilton suffered a puncture in Turkey while on course for another podium and Alonso beat him in a 1-2 in Italy. It was after that when the Spygate affair came to light which ripped the sport apart, McLaren were excluded form the constructors championship and were hit with a record fine after allegations of spying between McLaren designers and british Ferrari employees. Some felt that with the drivers being repireived of any blame that McLaren still got off lightly.

But repireved they were and in the next race in Japan, Hamilton gave a masteful wet weather performance in treacharous conditions, he won while Alonso crashed out, this meant he had a 12 point lead going into the final 2 races. But for the first time, his inexperience began to show, a miscommunication between him and the team in China meant Hamilton ran longer than he was supposed to on his st stint on intermediate tyres, and when coming into the pits, he had no grip and slid off into a gravel bank forcing retirement. And in the title decider in Brazil, he only needed to finish 5th to be champion but ran wide on the 1st lap then dropped back to last after a gearbox malfunction, he fought back to finish 7th but it was not enough, Kimi Raikkonen won the title by a single point.

Hamilton had high hopes for 2008, he had just signed a new 5 year contract making him one of Britian's highest paid sportsmen, the sulking Alonso went back to Renault and Hamilton would be joined by Heikki Kovalainen who himself had an impressive debut season the previous year. The year started off perfectly for Hamilton with victory in Australia, his good friend Nico Rosberg scoring his first podium and none of his predicted title challengers scored points. But the next 2 months would be a struggle as Ferrari began to show better pace by winning the next 4 races, Hamilton only managed 2 podiums in that time. But then came Monaco and Hamilton had one of his luckiest days, as the rain came down early on, Hamilton clipped the barriers and suffered a puncture, his team immediately changed tactics and put him on intermediate tyres, this would prove crucial as everyone else pitted under a safety car period and Hamilton on used tyres went on to assume and then build up a big lead, with which he went on to take an emotional win.

The good fortune would not last though as a pit lane calamity in Canada and a penalty in France put him off the pace going into his home round at Silverstone where he would produce arguably his greatest drive to date, aided by a bungling strategy from Ferrari, Hamilton gave a masterful drive in torrential conditions on intermediate tyres, he was consistently 6 seconds a lap quicker than everyone on the same tyres and he went on to win by over a minute lapping everyone but Nick Heidfeld and the popular Rubens Barrichello, it was a preformence that was compared with Ayrton Senna's win in similar conditions in Portugal in 1985. Another win follwed in Germany before a puncture in Hungary looked like he would see his world title hopes fritter away as he was lying down in 6th place, but he recieved a huge stroke of luck as title rival Felipe Massa amazingly blew his engine with 3 laps to go, even better for Hamilton, his teammate Heikki Kovalainen benefitted to take his maiden win.

2nd place in Valencia (behind Massa) followed before yet more controversy in Belgium, after Ferrari dominated, it began to rain again and leader Kimi Raikkonen began to struggle in the conditions, Hamilton reeled him in and made his move on the with 2 laps to go, he was put wide by Raikkonen forcing Hamilton to cut the chicane, Hamilton then let him back through (as he was obliged to do under the rules) but then immediately sat back into Raikkonen's slipstream and re-passed him at the very next corner, Raikkonen then later spun out giving Hamilton the win, which would then be taken off him for not giving up an advantage.

Italy came next and after Hamilton endured a terrible qualifying ending up 15th, he recovered to finish 7th but that was overshadowed by the maiden win of Sebastian Vettel. A solid drive then followed in Singapore finishing 3rd while Massa suffered more pit lane calamities. Japan was isntantly forgettable, desite starting on pole, Hamiltonw was penalised for a starting infringement and then controversially punted into a spin by Massa when Hamilton attempted to overtake him. He made up for it in China with a dominant win.

Thus bringing the championship again to the final round in Brazil and like the previous year, Hamilton again only needed a top 5 finish but this time he would prevail and claim the title in extremely dramatic circumstances, after changeable weather conditions, Hamilton's cautious approach meant he lay in 4th place but then the rain came, and after a change of tyres, Hamilton had dropped down to 5th after Timo Glock elected to stay out. Unusually for Hamilton he was struggling in the conditions to warm up his tyres and with 2 laps to go lost 5th place to Sebastian Vettel, Massa (who was leading) suddenly was in a championship winning position and he beleived he had done it when he crossed the line to win. But the McLaren strategists were calm and would be proved right in their judgement of the race, after Hamilton pitted, they were keeping an eye on Timo Glock's pace in case Vettel passed (which he did) and now Glock was struggling with Hamilton reeling him in at the rate of 10 seconds per sector, and as a result, he went on to overtake Glock for 5th place at the very last corner while the Brazilians were celebrating. Hamilton crossed the line and could'nt believe his luck, he had just become world champion minutes after he thought he had lost it.

Its under that success that hamilton will go into 2009 in good spirits, with Ron Dennis leaving his position at McLaren that is the only major change apart from the new techincal and aerodynamical regulations, as a reuslt of these changes, there will be more emphasis on driver skill so dont count agaisnt Hamilton joining an elite club of drivers who have won back to back titles.