Tribute to three time F1 World Champion – Lewis Hamilton – Video
Won-two-three is Lewis Hamilton’s mantra these days, after successfully acquiring his third ever Formula One Driver’s World Championship title and his second in succession.
Not all great stories have a similarly great beginning, but Lewis’ kind of does. We’re used to Formula One drivers starting off in karting from a tender age and then moving up the ranks until they end up in GP2, Formula One’s antechamber.
Well, Lewis’ career had a similar course, only the actual beginning is somewhat weirder than what you’d expect. His driving skills were first noticed while racing RC models, finishing second in the British Radio Car Association Championship in 1992 when he was six years old.
That gave his parents something to think about, and since they were the kind of people who encouraged their kids to follow their dreams (or Lewis cried so much they eventually gave in just to make him shut up, nobody really knows), it was the same year our fresh three-time world champion got his first kart for Christmas.
It doesn’t take long (about four years) until Lewis wins the British Cadet Kart Championship, so things were beginning to look more and more serious. He made his Formula One debut in 2007, aged 21, finishing third in his first ever race on the big scene. That must have made his parents really proud, and his opponents pretty worried.
The same year brought him the first pole position and also his first Formula One win. It’s hard to imagine how that must have felt for a boy his age, but we’re betting it felt good.
Not as good as his first title, though, which came the following season. It’s easy to forget Lewis first won the title back in 2008, when he was 23 years old, and you can blame that on another youngster: Sebastian Vettel. The way he dominated the big circus in the following years split the Formula One into “before Vettel” and “after Vettel.”
His 2008 title was also a pretty shoddy affair, as it was literally won in the last corner of the last race when Lewis overtook Glock to finish fifth and deny Felipe Massa a title a lot of people thought he deserved.
Six whole years later, in the A.V. (after Vettel) era, Lewis Hamilton takes full advantage of the wonderful MERCEDES-AMG PETRONAS car and wins his second title, duly followed by his third this season when the only real threat was his teammate, Nico Rosberg.