Lewis Hamilton is a British racing driver who participates in Formula One for the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team. He was born in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England, on January 7, 1985.
When Hamilton was eight years old, he started his racing career. When he was 10 years of age, he won the British Kart Championship. Hamilton was enrolled in the McLaren and Mercedes-Benz Young Driver Support Programme three years later, where he got the help and support he required to train and hone his abilities. He won the European and World Karting Championships from 1998 to 2000, and at the age of 15, he set a record for the youngest driver to ever hold the top spot in the competition.
Hamilton made his foray into racing and won the British Formula Renault Racing series championship in 2003, winning 10 of the 15 races he entered. The following year he participated in the European Formula 3 series championship. He won the championship in 2005, and in 2006 he joined the team participating in GP2 (Grand Prix 2) and won the GP2 series championship during one of its seasons.
Hamilton joined the McLaren F1 squad in 2007. Only one point separated him from Finland’s Kimi Raikkonen who clinched the world drivers’ title in his rookie season. That year, his four race victories tied Jacques Villeneuve’s F1 mark for the most victories in a rookie season. He won five races the following year, at the age of 23, to win the drivers’ title. (Until Sebastian Vettel received the title in 2010, Hamilton was the youngest person to win the title.)
Hamilton remained one of the best F1 competitors in the following seasons with McLaren, winning two races in 2009, three in 2010, three in 2011, and four in 2012. Hamilton made the decision to leave McLaren and join the Mercedes-Benz F1 team in September 2012. Hamilton struggled to adapt in his first season with Mercedes-Benz, winning just one race, but he still accumulated enough points to place in the top five of the drivers’ championship standings for the seventh successive year.
The 2014 Formula One season was indeed dominated by Hamilton, who won a career-high 11 races and won his second drivers’ championship. When he won his third drivers’ championship one month before the season ended in 2015, he was just as dominant. Hamilton’s performance, along with that of teammate Nico Rosberg, helped Mercedes-Benz win the F1 constructor’s championship in both of those seasons. In 2016, Rosberg and Mercedes-Benz won their respective championships, and Hamilton came in second place behind his teammate in the drivers’ standings. Hamilton won his fourth drivers’ championship the following year after winning nine races.
In 2018, he included another drivers’ championship to his career total of five, tying Juan Manuel Fangio for the second-highest total of championships in F1 history. The following year, Hamilton achieved his sixth drivers’ title, moving him into second place behind Michael Schumacher by one championship. With his seventh championship in 2020, Hamilton equaled Schumacher’s feat while also surpassing his career F1 race victories.
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