LEWIS HAMILTON

At the commencement of the 2007 season, all eyes were glued to whether former Mclaren driver Kimi Raikkonen would be able to fill-in the shoes of former world champion, Micheal Schumacher. Fans were expecting an intense battle between last years world champion Fernando Alonso, driving for Mclaren this season and Kimi Raikkonen who was Schumacher’s successor for Ferrari. But, a 21 year old British rookie had other plans and was all set to spoil their party. Hamilton stormed his way into Formula1 by qualifying fourth and finishing an impressive third in Australia, becoming the 14th driver to finish on the podium on his debut Grand Prix and since then has not looked back, finishing on the podium in all the nine races, also winning twice by the mid point of the season and is at top of the tree by a fair margin as far as the Drivers Championship is concerned.

Lewis Carl Hamilton named after the Olympic gold medal winning athlete Carl Lewis was born January 7, 1985 in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England. He started racing karts at the age of eight. When he was nine, he approached McLaren F1 team boss Ron Dennis at an awards ceremony and told him he would drive for McLaren one day; four years later, Hamilton was signed to the McLaren driver development support programme. Hamilton became European karting champion in 2000 with maximum points and made a successful transition to racing cars the following year. He progressed through the junior formulae, achieving titles in Formula Renault, Formula 3 and GP2. He was appointed as a Formula One driver for McLaren this season and has been already winning a lot of fans not just in his home town but all around the globe through his aggressive yet accomplished style of driving.