Lewis Hamilton was destined for F1 success from an early age having been signed by McLaren for their 'Young Driver Support Programme' when he was still driving karts. Hamilton made strong progress demonstrating his potential by winning the British Formula Renault and Formula Three Euroseries titles followed by the GP2 title in 2006. By now Formula One beckoned and at the age of 22 in 2007 he was embarking on his first F1 season at McLaren with double World Champion Fernando Alonso as his team mate. It was a dramatic debut for Hamilton who outshone his illustrious team mate narrowly losing out on the title to Kimi Raikkonen by a single point. On the way he notched up four Grand Prix wins tying with a record set by Jacques Villeneuve for wins in a drivers debut season in 1996. During 2007 Alonso's relationship with his team mate and the McLaren team soured and he was replaced by Heikki Kovalainen for 2008. Hamilton built on the solid foundations he had laid in 2008 becoming the sports youngest World Champion at 23 years of age winning in Australia, Monaco, Great Britain, Germany and China. The 2009 serason proved to be more difficult as the new McLaren car was not competitive with the team having failed to make the most of the sweeping new regulations that had been brought in by the FIA. Hamilton and Kovalainen struggled with the car although Lewis did make some headway winning in Hungary and Singapore. The McLaren was however no match for the Brawn GP car of Jenson Button with Brawn having fully exploited the regulations around double diffusers from the outset of the season gaining a considerable advantage in the process. Button went on to take the title for the first time with Hamilton finishing the season in 5th place. His season was overshadowed by a debacle with the stewards at the Australian GP resulting in disqualification after Hamilton and the team were found guilty of misleading the stewards over an overatking manouevre involving the Toyota of Jarno Trulli. For the 2010 season Hamilton will be joined at McLaren by fellow Briton and World Champion Jenson Button.
For the record
Nationality - British
Born 7th January 1985
First GP Australia 2007
Total GP's 52
Wins 11
Poles 17
Fastest laps 3
Total points 256
Teams
-Mclaren
World Champion
-2008
