Lewis Hamilton is a professional motorsport driver from England who is currently racing in Formula 1 with the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team. Hamilton was born on the 7^th of January, 1985 in the Stevenage region of Hertfordshire. As far as the story goes, a very young Hamilton was present at the Auto Sport Awards ceremony and there, he met the then team principal of McLaren Ron Denis and he told him that he wanted to race for him and for McLaren. Just a couple of years after this fabled incident, the 13 year old Hamilton was signed up by Mercedes Benz and McLaren as part of the Young Driver Support Programme.

The first taste that Lewis Hamilton got of motor racing was when his father bought him a radio controlled car in 1991 and he used to play with it all the time. In 1992, he finished as runner up in the National BRCA championship. After this, his father got a go kart for him when he was just six years old as a Christmas Present after Hamilton promised him that he would doubly hard at school. However, getting him started on his racing career was easy, but keeping him there was financially very stressful for Hamilton’s father and he had to take up a contractor’s job to keep his son’s dreams alive. He then started his own computer company and became Hamilton’s manager.

After several stints in the karting as well as the Formula Renault, GP2 and Formula Three circuit, Lewis Hamilton made the long awaited step up to Formula 1 in 2007 when it was announced that he would be partnering reigning World Champion Fernando Alonso for the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team. That was the start of an unhappy partnership for Hamilton and Alonso who was unhappy with the preference that the team gave to the young Briton when he was the champion. In his first season, Hamilton finished just a  point behind Kimi Raikkonen in the drivers’ standings and in the very next season, he was able to clinch the title by a single point thereby, becoming at that time, the youngest ever Formula 1 champion. With his mother being a white Briton and his father being black, people often refer to Lewis Hamilton as the first ever black driver to race on the Formula 1 circuit. He is currently lying in fourth position of the drivers’ standings.