To the people who made this all possible

To my family, to McLaren and to Mercedes-Benz

LEWIS

HAMILTON

MY STORY

HarperSport An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

CONTENTS

Cover

Dedication

Title Page

1 RESOLVE

2 INSPIRATIONS

3 CONFIDENCE

4 STARTING OUT

5 CLIMBING

6 DREAMS

7 RUNNING

8 UNBELIEVABLE!

9 FORMULA FAME

10 WINNING

11 SILVERSTONE

12 ADVERSITY

13 STRIFE

14 FAME

15 CONTROVERSY

16 PRESSURE

17 SAMBA

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Career Statistics

Index

Picture Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

CHAPTER
1
RESOLVE

‘That I led the championship from the third race of the season all the way to the last was an amazing feat in itself, even if it meant the final outcome was tinged with some disappointment. I soon got over that, though…’

MY STORY IS NOT ABOUT LUCK OR A FAIRY TALE. It is about hard work, about my family’s sacrifices and determination, my dad’s huge support for me and many other people’s belief and kindness. I found I had a talent and I have worked as hard as possible to develop it so that I can be successful and in the process inspire others, if I can, to achieve a dream.

It has been an unbelievable year, easily the most exciting and challenging of my life. From the start in Melbourne, which seems so long ago now, to the finish in São Paulo, I travelled through a phenomenal Formula One year, winning four races, finishing as runner-up in five, and battling for podium finishes in a few others, in my rookie season with the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team.

That I led the championship from the third race of the season all the way to the last was an amazing feat in itself, even if it meant the final outcome was tinged with some disappointment. I soon got over that, though – thanks to my dad’s endless positive energy and example, and the McLaren team’s great spirit, not to mention a memorable team party organized by Vodafone on the Sunday night after that final race at Interlagos. It summed up our unity at the end of a very trying season and I admit I enjoyed the opportunity to let my hair down a bit with my friends and team-mates. Shoot, it was worth it! I ended the season with good vibes. I felt proud of the team for the way they had worked through to the end of a really difficult, troubled year. The São Paulo party was good for us all. Ron Dennis made a speech and said some really good things and we had a great evening. It just rounded off the whole year and, when I was mentioned a couple of times, it made me feel proud to be part of that team.

So much happened to me in such a short a space of time that, when the season ended, I felt like I needed to stop, look back and take stock of what had happened. But in Formula One there is no time for that. The search for progress is relentless, the appetite for success, improvement and frontier-breaking unquenchable. Stand still for a moment and your rivals will pass you. Whoooosh! That is the competitive nature of the sport. It comes out in every aspect of all of the teams’ activities. Nothing is left to chance, no stone left unturned, in pursuit of greater speed, efficiency and effectiveness in all areas of a racing team. And that restlessness reflects the way I have always felt about my life in racing. I always want to move on and on, to keep going forward to the next level and the next challenge. But I always want to succeed properly, fair and square, out on the track and not in any other way.

I had arrived in São Paulo leading the championship by four points, but I left in second place, just a single point behind the new champion Kimi Räikkönen. I may have been hit by mechanical problems, but I was beaten fair and square on the Interlagos track by Kimi and his Ferrari. It was no time for recriminations or complaints. I do not believe in doing that; I do not blame my team when things happen. We all win and lose together. Kimi drove superbly and won six races in all, including three out of the final four Grands Prix. He deserved his success. That is why I was quick to congratulate him at the end of the race in the parc fermé. I felt sore for myself, but I felt happy for Kimi – he is a cool guy and he has been a great competitor this year.

I had just finished my rookie year at the age of 22. I knew I had a future in Formula One and, with reasonable luck, plenty more opportunities to win the World Championship. I had no doubt about that. It had been a fantastic season and instead of feeling down, or in any kind of pain, I felt we had a lot to celebrate and enjoy. I felt proud of the way the team had come through a sometimes stormy, controversial year and I felt proud, too, of my family and all my friends and supporters who had helped me to get where I was, so close to the title in my first season. It was a day to be happy. In the end, the year was not decided by that one race in Brazil, but a whole championship season.

It was also one of the most exciting Formula One seasons ever, at least on the track. If somebody had told me a year ago that I would be fighting for the World Championship at the end of the 2007 season, I would have said they were dreaming. But that is what happened. In the end, I lost by just one point, but I proved I had the potential to be involved in more and more championship fights in the future. Nobody would have predicted that I would finish second in my first season, so there was no reason for anything but celebrations. I did my best, the team did their best and there was nothing any of us could do to change things. In all honesty, at the end, I just felt it had been a really intense, crazy year and, truly, I did not feel gutted by the outcome. It was cool. I believed and still believe in the team and the car, and I am looking ahead with real optimism.

Who would have thought I would be leading the World Championship going into the last race? Who could have imagined the crowds we had at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix? Who would have dreamt that I would go to North America and win back-to-back Grands Prix in Canada and the United States? Or win four races and start from pole position six times in 17 races?

I know it was all against me in the end, and that the final two races were bad results for me, but I plan to learn from that and to go into next year and try to improve all round. I am going to come back fitter, more relaxed and more experienced – and I will have a better car and I will push harder for the championship. To think I came straight from GP2 to be ranked number two in the world is a positive thing and I know we will be strong next year. We will do a better job, for sure, the team will keep pushing and I have got the experience now and I will bank that. I cannot wait for the next race! Of course, I felt emotional afterwards in Brazil, at least a little bit. I try not to show emotions, but I cannot deny that I felt it a little when the season ended.

When I think back, there are so many great memories: my GP2 Championship, then the opportunity to test for the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team and those early tests at Silver-stone and at Jerez in September and October 2006. They were just a year before the title-decider in Brazil. I remember that first week of testing at Silverstone when I wore some other dude’s race suit to start with, and it smelt. When I got my own, I thought it was so cool, I wanted to sleep in it! The whole journey for me, from my earliest days as part of the McLaren and Mercedes-Benz family to Formula One, has been quite emotional. And this last year has been a rollercoaster.

The test at Silverstone – only a year before I flew to Japan and China for the two Grands Prix that lifted me within reach of the title and then dashed my hopes – was the best week of my life at the time. I enjoyed it so much. I felt the pressure, because it was my first test, but it was so cool. I worked my way through it. The thing that really struck me, after GP2, was the downforce in the high-speed corners. I was like, ‘Wow, this is Formula One! I want this!’ And then I went to Jerez to test again, and gradually, after not such a fast start, I was into it and doing the laps. I just loved that testing and it went well and, looking back now, I have only good memories.

It seems so long ago. So, too, does the day I was confirmed as Fernando’s team-mate, as a race driver in the team, and all the other testing. And the launch in Valencia on 15 January earlier in the year, when we did all the razzmatazz and had those huge crowds and did the ‘doughnuts’ in the streets…So much has happened since – and luckily for me, nearly all of it has been good. One of the few bad days came when I had a big accident testing the new MP4-22 at Valencia in January before the season. Fortunately for me I was unhurt, but the car was quite badly damaged and it set us back in our test programme. That accident was a shaker for me, a reminder of what these cars can do and it was a big part of my early learning experience with the team.

In fact I have learned something every day in this last year. I am so competitive that I always want to achieve more and more. It is a positive force for me. I want to win. You have to be realistic and remember this was my first season and that it was something special for me. I was bound to make some mistakes. I started out just hoping to learn a lot, to challenge Fernando and to prove I was worth my seat in the team. The level of expectation was a measure of how far I had gone in that space of time.

After Brazil, I was asked if there was anything different I would do for next season given my experiences this year. A lot of things, really. Now after one season in Formula One, I have the experience to know how to plan my year differently so I can be more structured and have more time for myself and for my family. Next year I will know the circuits, apart from the new ones – and they are street circuits so I love them anyway. It is not so much about doing things differently but doing them better. I want to be fitter, work harder and be a better driver all round. I know all of this is not something that can be achieved in one year, as it takes time to evolve – especially if you are striving to become the best in the world. My dream is still there and it is still in front of me. So in one way, maybe it is a good thing that I have not been crowned number one this year, because there is a long time to come in my life and I am sure I will have a lot more opportunities.

I find it easy to overcome disappointments and negativity. Life goes on and every new day is a new positive. Sometimes, you just have to say to yourself, ‘Get on with it.’ I am my own biggest critic and often want to say, ‘Lewis, kick it!’ I push myself. It is the same for us all in the team and we work for each other, helping one another as much as we can. A racing team is not just about the person who is driving the car. It is much, much bigger than that. I have been very lucky this year to have learned a lot from the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team. I have gained so much from driving and handling the car, set-up, tyre selection, strategy and the whole range of factors that can make a driver successful.

I have also learned a lot about the politics of Formula One…

CHAPTER
2
INSPIRATIONS

‘Dad is my biggest supporter, and a fantastic father, without whom I may not have even discovered I had any talent for racing.’

TO BE A FORMULA ONE RACING DRIVER you need to be extremely fit and prepared – both physically and mentally for the whole challenge. It is far more exhausting than you can ever imagine if you have never raced in a car. And it is not easy. Sometimes, if you are not feeling right, if you do not have the right energy levels, it can be impossible. It is important to find your own way, then keep your mind clear and maintain the right level of motivation.

Just the ordinary things – like travelling all the time; packing bags, grabbing them and taking them with you; going to functions, meeting people; the crowds, the heavy schedule – all take their toll on your energy and strength after a while. So it is important to stay calm when you can and not to waste energy.

I have a special source of extra motivation. For me, even when I am feeling pretty stretched, rushing around in the middle of a Formula One weekend and surrounded by people who want a bit of my time – and with what feels like a thousand things to do – I only have to think of one person to keep me feeling motivated and to put a smile on my face: my brother Nicolas. I remember Linda, my step-mum, being pregnant with Nic. I remember him being born and that I would just go and sit next to him and watch him. I had prayed to have a brother and was so happy when he came into the world. It really meant a lot to me, in my childhood, to have a brother. And it still does.

Nic was born two months early and it was a long time after his birth – I think nearly eighteen months – before he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. He was still the same Nic to us and we loved him whatever. Nic has trouble walking, and this affects his whole body to a point, but he never complains. He always has a smile on his face whatever the situation.

I remember when Nic was four he had to have an operation on his legs to extend the tendons so as to increase his mobility. The operation was a major one and very distressing. Nic had to have cuts in his groin, behind his knees, and in his ankles. He was in plaster for about eight weeks. I was only eleven and heavily into my karting by then, going to race tracks at weekends and having a great time. We always went to every race as a family – Linda, Nic, my dad and me. Nic was let out of hospital after about a week and they gave him this little wheelchair. As soon as he was released, Nic was back on the racing circuit with us, his legs stretched out straight in front of him and plastered up to the groin. The whole operation period was a very traumatic time for us all, in particular Nic, who, when the time came to take off his plaster casts, thought the doctors were going to cut his legs off. I remember he cried his eyes out but it wasn’t long before that smile came back to his face. That smile – it is infectious and inspirational. It taught me a lot about life. Nic has always been my number one fan and I am his.

I just hope that by writing about him, he doesn’t get too big-headed because, if he does, I will have to make sure he soon forgets it! He is such a character, so grounded too, and he is always cheerful and happy. He has big respect from me and all who know him. Nic is seven years younger than me and because of that, I sometimes feel like I have to teach him things, like my dad did for me. But most of the time, I am learning stuff from him.

Nic is now fifteen and, if anything, we are even closer. I love spending time with him. We enjoy the same sort of things, the same sort of music. As he gets older, it’s good to be able to talk about girls with him! It won’t be long before we can go partying together – and I am dying for the time when he is old enough so we can go out to a club or just do our own thing. That is going to be so cool.

It is rare for me during the season to get a decent period of time at my parents’ home to spend with Nic but we did have a few this year. After the Turkish Grand Prix, for example, and before I had to travel to Italy, I went home to my parents’ house in Hertfordshire. The weather was great, Nic was there and we had fun doing all kinds of things together.

We played golf one day, for example. Nic finds it extremely difficult to stand still and balance in one place; add to that the fact that he is also left-handed, which does not help his swing. Even though he shouldn’t be able to, Nic still attempts to play football, basketball, almost everything. He just never gives up and always puts 100 per cent effort into trying something even if he knows it’s too much for him. Nic gets out of life what he puts into life and that must give him a huge amount of satisfaction. I know that he cannot do things as well as me but he has a real good go at it and makes me work even harder to make sure I beat him. ‘Never let him have it easy,’ is what my dad always said, just so that he would try harder. I am lucky in that I am good at most sports, but for Nic it must be really difficult. Either way, he always puts a smile on my face – although occasionally he can be quite argumentative. He reminds me of myself!

I often try to imagine myself in Nic’s position. I do not think I would be anywhere near as strong as him. There’s just so much to admire in him. So, whatever I am doing, I say to myself, ‘If you think it’s hard to do this, then think again.’ I think about Nic’s strength of character and that gives me added strength. So Nic is my inspiration – and that helps me a lot. But, in fact, my whole family are very close. We do everything we can together, and we always have done, but as I grow older and become more independent each year, I know that is probably going to change a bit – but not all that much. We have an intense bond and are a strong family. It helps us remain as normal as possible, to stay focused on the right things and not be distracted by all the stuff going on around us. We are a team, my family. We always have been. I like to think of my parents’ home as my power station, the place where I can go to seek support, rest and reassurance in the good things in life.

Thanks to my family, I know it is important not to lose perspective – though at times in the past year, that has not been easy. Formula One is such a demanding and fast-moving business that it is easy to lose your own sense of direction sometimes. It can be very, very tough so you have to concentrate fully on the job in hand, prepare well and stay as level-headed and consistent as you can. If you stick to your beliefs and your true values in life, I believe things work out right in the end.

My mum Carmen and dad Anthony divorced when I was about two and I lived with my mum until I was ten. After that I moved to live with my dad and step-mum Linda. My mum is a huge and important part of my life and has always been there in the background wishing me success from afar. My step-mum Linda has been amazing and I think she is the best step-mum in the world. I was very emotionally attached to my dad, and it was difficult only seeing him at the weekends. They were the greatest weekends – I would not have missed them for anything – but I remember when I was ten that I liked living with my mum because she was the ‘easier’ parent.

You know with parents when you have the easy one and the demanding one? Well, she was the easier one. I’ve been extremely lucky: both my mum and Linda are incredibly considerate, very caring and generous, and fun-loving.

A huge part of my personality – the emotional side, I would say – comes from both my mums. Even though my dad always told me, ‘You have to be polite,’ that was already in my nature. I would say my stronger, more competitive side comes from my dad. My selfishness, my focus, my determination, my ability to put things out of my mind, the way I say things and express myself, present myself well, and everything that gives people their perception of you – that all comes from, and has been driven by, my dad.

For example, my approach to things is: do not waver, do not give up. My dad reminds me of that nearly every single day and I am always aware of how much work we have put in to get where we are today – and how much more work he expects me to do in the future! He is as relentless in his own way as I am in mine and I am sure that is a part of our characters that has contributed to our achievements. We are both hard workers and we believe in the same things – honesty, loyalty and trust – and we both have a never-say-die attitude. Anyone who knows him will tell you that. He is my biggest supporter, and a fantastic father, without whom I may not have even discovered I had any talent for racing! And he is a big reason – really the absolute reason – that I have been able to develop myself as a racing driver, and, probably more importantly, as a human being.

I am very close to my roots – to my father’s family in Grenada, West Indies, where my real home is, and to the Grenadian people. My granddad lives in Grenada and drives a private minibus. His passengers are predominantly school children but my granddad will give just about anyone a lift. He is supposed to charge per ride but he just loves his job so much that sometimes he allows some passengers to ride for free. All the kids love him and out of respect they call him ‘Uncle Dave’, although his real name is Davidson. Nearly everyone in Grenada knows Uncle Dave. Wherever he goes people always acknowledge him and call out ‘Uncle Dave!’ He is everyone’s uncle! My dad bought my granddad a new 18-seater minibus about a year ago because the old one was over twenty-five years old and my dad feared for the safety of my granddad and the passengers. I think my granddad’s friends couldn’t believe it. Some people didn’t want to ride in Uncle Dave’s old minibus because it was too slow but now everyone wants to ride in his new one.

I feel close to all of that. I love Grenada; it is a beautiful country and a place where I have learned a lot. Living in multicultural Europe, it is easy to take things for granted, while in Grenada some people still live in buildings that resemble sheds. We visit Grenada every year, sometimes twice a year, and during our visits I get a real perspective on things, a better understanding of life altogether – and I realize how blessed I am. My family, my roots, and our values are primarily Grenadian although we are British, having been born in the UK. My granddad came to England in the 1950s and then returned to Grenada in the seventies following the death of my grandmother. My dad has always expressed a wish to return and I plan to do the same at some stage in my life but not now. To see the kids in Grenada with smiles on their faces – even if they’ve got very, very little in comparison with European kids – helps me to understand and manage my way in life. So my principles are always to listen to my dad, cherish my family, compete hard and never give up. Most of all, I try to keep a smile on my face.

Alongside the great experiences in my life I’ve also had some very bad, really challenging times – which you will read about later – but even those have made me stronger. And, with the help of my family, I’ve bounced back twice as strong as before. I think that is why I am probably such a strong character in racing. Every mistake and every good thing that has happened to me has counted. And there is not a day gone by that I wished I had done more of this or that. The way I see it, you have to rise above things and move on. You just cannot wait around. You have to do it yourself and just get on with it if you want things to happen.

That is why I feel like I have got such a responsibility to make people happy, make younger kids more determined or ambitious and all that sort of thing. For me that is a pleasure: it is not just about the racing; it is all those other things that come into it that I really, really enjoy. I do occasionally pray – my granddad is very religious, he goes to church every day and he is always on my case, asking, ‘Are you praying?’ or telling me, ‘Not to worry, Lewis, the Lord will provide, just ask for His help.’ Every now and then I will say a prayer and show my appreciation. I try to make sure it is not only when I am in trouble and I need help; even when I have had a great day, I try to thank God for it.

That is why religion is not an issue for me – any more than race is an issue. I am Roman Catholic; I was baptized when I was two and for a lot of my life I always thought there was something there. Sometimes, if I was in trouble I would pray, but I was never hardcore into it – but then neither was the family, although we all believe. I have always felt very much that I have been gifted and very much blessed – I have a great family, a talent which many people don’t either get to discover or experience, and I really do feel like there is a higher power and that He has given me something. Whether it is to send a message out, or to use, or just to have fun, I do not know. I think everyone has got talent and gifts, but not everyone discovers them, and people can occasionally be misled. I am fortunate that I have not been. I feel everyone is put here for a purpose and all the individuals that do discover things in their life are able to make a change and make a difference.

Some people think race, or skin colour, is an issue; some think religion is. Putting it simply, I do not like to see anyone treated badly. I do not like people who do not behave well, who are not polite or who do not show respect when they should. I guess it comes from my own younger days when I had to do things and I didn’t find it easy. I had a bad time at school because there were some bullies around who were probably jealous of me going karting at weekends; either that or they just didn’t like me. I tried to deal with that by defending myself, so I learned karate. That is my way of sorting out my problems. I try not to get entangled, I prefer to rise above them, but sometimes you need to be able to stand your ground, don’t you? I believe in doing things right and doing them properly.

I had a lot of other experiences when I was young, some good, some bad, but from each of them I learned something. In 1997, when I was thirteen, I went to my first Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium. My dad and I were having a great day as guests of McLaren Mercedes. I remember walking around with my dad and we saw Eddie Irvine and decided to go and ask him for his autograph. I stood there in admiration of him, waiting for him to sign my book, but he looked at me and just walked on. It may well have been that Eddie was incredibly busy and did not have the time to be distracted or that he was just having a bad day. There are numerous reasons why this episode could have happened. At my age at that time, however, I didn’t think of any of that but know what it’s like now. I have never forgotten how that made me feel.

Someone else showed me how different it can be. That was David Coulthard. I also met him at Spa. I was standing at the front of the McLaren garage when David came in and walked straight past me and my dad. I called out, ‘Alright, David?’ and he turned round and, two seconds later, he said, ‘Alright, Lewis?’ He knew me…what a feeling that was! He had come to see me karting and he remembered me. I really appreciated it. So, always, I have huge respect for David. He is a real gent and he taught me something good – that it costs nothing to say ‘Hello’.

I can say now that these two experiences certainly made me determined that if, or when, I reached the top and anyone ever asked me for an autograph, or a piece of my time, I will try to give them my time with good grace and respect. That is why I work hard to look after my many fans. I appreciate that’s not always going to be easy or possible, but that’s what I aim to achieve.

Actually, it was not until Formula Three that I realized that I had fans, people that admired me for what I did. When they wanted to come over and talk to me, it was just a pleasure for me. All of them were polite to me, and I was no one as far as I was concerned, but they were always there supporting me. I was not used to that, but I learned from it. I have got some great fans all over the world, including those who come all the way from Japan, just for a weekend, to watch me race! I always try to make time for them because from past experiences I know how important it is to make time for others.

When I got to GP2, I noticed that my time was getting more precious – but I made sure I had enough of it to go around and say thank you to everyone. When I reached Formula One, it got more and more difficult, but I knew to expect this, so when I went to my first Grand Prix, in Australia, I said to myself that I must make time for the fans. I worked out that if I planned to get to the track at eight, and that I had a meeting starting at half past eight, then there was not enough time, in that half an hour, to start signing autographs. So I said to myself, ‘I’ll get there at 7.30 and use that extra time to sign autographs.’ What a great feeling it was to make others happy; that’s a bit more energy in my energy bank. But I remember one day at Albert Park when I was just trying to juggle all the different events that were going on – I had a tyres briefing, an engineering meeting, and several other meetings and then I had to rush back to the hotel to do a HUGO BOSS and a Mercedes-Benz event, or something – and I was panicking. It all got to me. I didn’t know how to judge it. I didn’t have time to do autographs at the exit gate, where everyone was waiting outside the paddock, and I just walked on, and I kept walking. It was not a good feeling ignoring the fans, doing the one thing I promised I would never do. That was one of the single most distressing experiences I have ever had and it played on my mind all night.

So, next day, I made sure that I got a load of photos and posters and I signed about a hundred posters or more. I put ‘Sorry’ or ‘Thank you’ or something like that on them, and then the following day I went in early and signed a load of autographs as well and gave each person a poster. It felt good – I got all my energy back. A lot of fans who get the opportunity to come up close are sometimes physically shaking with nerves and I remember feeling it was incredible that I could make anyone feel that way. I’m only human. I’m not this big superstar that you see on TV. I am nothing special. I might be a Formula One racing driver, but that does not make me any different. As far as I am concerned we are all on the same level. I want to take time out of my schedule to sign an autograph if it is going to make someone’s day. Making people happy is what makes me happy.

I do not believe in doing anything wrong to succeed. Never. In my family we are all competitive and nobody likes to lose. I would say my dad’s the worst. He taught me how to win and lose but even he would admit that losing is not a nice experience to deal with – it does make your desire to succeed even stronger, though I can see how difficult he finds it sometimes. It shows in his face, of course, even after a game of pool at home. And I can see it sometimes after races. We are alike, too, in that we stick to the same way of doing things. As I said earlier, we believe in the basics – honesty, loyalty and trust – and that is why we all found the politics in Formula One this year so hard to handle. As I said at the time, politics sucks. Everyone knows about the controversy with Ferrari and, well, the last thing any of us wanted was to be landed in something like that in the middle of my rookie season.

I suppose it is to do with honesty that I want to do things properly…in an open way. I compete to win, but I always do my best and try to do things the right way. Maybe I am sometimes very highly charged and very determined, but I would never ever cheat to win. Never at all. That is why we all felt so much emotion when there were so many allegations being made against the team, against Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, this year. It was wrong. I never once believed any of the rumours or stories and I had complete belief in Ron Dennis and the team and the values they stand by.

In my own way, the only thing to do was to rise above it all, concentrate on the racing, continue to do my best and, most important of all, keep a smile on my face which, with everything kicking off, had been difficult. All my lessons in life, my dad’s and my family’s advice and encouragement and examples of how to live and how to behave, have stood me in good stead. When you have been through some of the stuff I went through as a kid, and when you have seen life through a really normal pair of eyes in Stevenage, in London, in Grenada and other places – all of that on top of my racing career gave me the right kind of grounding to cope with it. So I just did my thing.

Being able to control yourself, redeem yourself, is important. When I play computer games with Nic I always try my best to beat him. I never let him win. I never let anyone win at anything, at home or anywhere. I am always the same. I am just that competitive. I have to win at everything, but I would never cheat. I just love knowing that I won fair and square or that I tried my best.

Mental strength is so important. On the surface, it may look like I am pretty cool most of the time, but underneath I am a very emotional person. That is why these things matter. I love being at home with my family and the equilibrium that gives me. We are all emotional people in my family – that is part of our nature – but in this business, in Formula One, you have to be a bit cold and a bit selfish. I suppose we are all a bit selfish in our own lives and that comes out sometimes in all of us. But I find I can balance it all if I am around my family.

Racing takes up most of my weekends, so any weekends I do have off are so important and valuable to me, and, going back to square one, returning to my own home and occasionally going to my parents’ house, the power station – that is important, too. It is where I do all my mental preparation and feel good. My strength is in the family, wherever we all are, as long as we are together.

There are loads of places where you can get mental strength and energy, but again there are loads of places you can lose energy! For me, the problems are energy-wasters. And it is my dad’s job to make sure that he helps me with that – he absorbs all of the negative energy when it happens. It is too easy to be sucked into things and just find you are drained by it all.

This whole thing about changing negative energy into positive energy is not rocket science. It is just about trying to look on the positive side and turn this or that mistake, or whatever, into something positive. I cannot do it with everything. Sometimes it is just too big to put through my small generator. So, that is when my dad absorbs it; or I put it onto someone else – I might call my mum, or a best friend, telling him about the problem – and then it’s their problem! As long as I keep the same set of principles, I will be fine.

I have been racing since I was eight years old and I have learned what works for me. I always try to remember to appreciate the opportunity I’ve been given and I always give 100 per cent. I always say, ‘Keep your family as close as possible.’ These are the things I believe in and they have done me well.

In my career, it is the same. McLaren and Mercedes-Benz have been incredibly loyal to us and, hopefully, we will be loyal to them and I’ll see out most of my career with them. For me, loyalty matters. In terms of friendship, it means being someone others can trust. And that works both ways. I am the sort of person who tells it all and can be quite blunt. Sometimes I do not realize that I may have affected someone, for worse or better, but it is just me being honest.

I know I am a lucky person. I have a good life, I have been given a talent and I have enjoyed myself very much, for most of the time, in my twenty-two years. It is never easy though. No way. Not for me, not for my dad and not for my family. We have had some extremely hard times and some extremely good times. But – and I think this is the most important thing – we have learned from them all.

CHAPTER
3
CONFIDENCE

‘My racing career may not have started properly until I was eight, but it had in fact been part of my life much earlier. As a teenager, sadly my enthusiasm was not shared by all and my career nearly ended before it had started because of a case of mistaken identity by my school.’

MY START IN LIFE WAS PRETTY NORMAL. I was born at the Lister Hospital in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, on 7 January 1985. I was named Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton. My dad’s middle name is Carl and Nic also has Carl as a middle name. The name Lewis was just a name that my parents liked at the time. The name Davidson is taken from my granddad.

Stevenage was one of the ‘new towns’ built after the Second World War and is a typical commuter town with both local and international business facilities and good rail and road links to London, in the south, and to the north of England. Thousands of people travel from Stevenage to London and back every day on the train and my dad was one of them. He worked for British Rail while my mum worked in the local council offices. My mum and dad lived in a council house in Peartree Way, on the Shephall Estate, in Stevenage. My mum had two daughters Samantha and Nicola – from a previous relationship before she met my dad. Sammy and Nicky were about two and three when my dad came into their lives. It was not a luxurious or a privileged neighbourhood, but it was also not as bad as some.

My first school was just down the end of our road, the Peartree Spring Nursery School. My second primary school, Peartree Infant and Junior School, was a five-minute walk around the corner. For my secondary school I chose the John Henry Newman School, a Roman Catholic secondary, before completing my education at the Cambridge Arts and Sciences College. I have to say it was not as straightforward as it sounds, and there were a few ups and downs along the way. My interest in karting and motor racing, which took me away a lot at weekends as I grew older, did not always fit in with the strict thinking of some people. At school, I used to keep my interest in racing to myself.

My racing career may not have started properly until I was eight, but it had in fact been part of my life much earlier. As a teenager, sadly my enthusiasm was not shared by all and my career nearly ended before it had started because of a case of mistaken identity by my school.

To this day, I find it difficult to talk about this because it nearly destroyed my faith in the education system. But I think it’s important to set the record straight on a few things in my life that have been reported inaccurately in the last year or so. I wish it could be forgotten forever but some things just need to be said.

It was 2001, I was sixteen and a few important months away from sitting my GCSEs at John Henry Newman School. In January of that year there was a serious incident at the school involving a pupil who was attacked in the school toilets by a gang of about six boys. I was accused of kicking the pupil. This was not true. I, like many others, had been hanging around waiting for the next lesson to start and had entered the toilets around the time that the attack was taking place. I was not involved in the attack but knew the boys involved.

The headteacher thought differently and wrote a letter to my parents advising them that I was excluded from school along with six other pupils and stating the reasons why. I couldn’t believe it. I was so upset. I didn’t know how I was going to explain it to my parents. I walked around in a daze, not really knowing where I was going for a while, I even considered running away and then eventually I went home. When I gave the letter to my dad and step-mum Linda they were obviously extremely disappointed and really mad – not so much with me but with the headteacher – although I remember my dad said to me, ‘Congratulations, you’ve done something that I never managed to do!’ I knew that I had done nothing wrong so this made it all the worse.

We decided to go back to the school. I went with Linda and my mum to speak to the headteacher. When they arrived at the school, the headteacher was not sympathetic to anything they said to him and he maintained that I had kicked the pupil and that I was correctly excluded. I knew I was innocent but he did not appear to be interested. Subsequent letters to the local education authority, our local MP, the Education Secretary and even the Prime Minister, were of no help. No one appeared to listen – no one either wanted to or had the time. We were on our own and I was out of school.

I found it very frustrating and upsetting, with everyone seemingly against me except my family, some true friends, and McLaren and Mercedes-Benz. I could not understand how I found myself in such an awful situation.

We launched an appeal to the Governors’ Discipline Committee of the school, but the appeal failed. We then appealed to the Local Education Authority where the matter was considered by the Exclusion Appeal Panel.

From the very beginning I told my dad that I was innocent and he did everything he could to prove this. It was just typical of my dad: when something is wrong he will go to the ends of the earth to find out the truth.

Anyway, it took weeks to resolve (although it seemed so much longer at the time) with documents going backwards and forwards. I was still out of school and having private tuition paid for by my family until our appeal could be heard. My dad had gone through the evidence and meticulously studied all the documents and witness statements and he thought he had a pretty good case prepared.

At the hearing, the Exclusion Appeal Panel concluded (after a thorough investigation including hearing oral evidence from witnesses) that my appeal should be upheld and that I should be fully reinstated to school. The panel concluded that I was not guilty of kicking the pupil. They also found that in fact there had been a serious case of mistaken identity, or, as they put it, ‘unfortunate confusion’ with another pupil who was said to be one of the individuals involved.

While the matter should have been resolved at that stage (the beginning of April 2001), the battle was not over as the school refused to reinstate me back to my class. It was the same for some other pupils who had successfully appealed. Instead, I was offered segregated tuition. All this was going on just before I took my GCSEs, so it was really bad timing. My dad arranged for alternative private tuition and exams. In the end I sat the GCSEs in different locations. It was not ideal as I had missed crucial weeks of education but I did my best given the circumstances. Some exams I sat back at the school, but they wouldn’t let me go back to my class so I had to sit on my own. The rest I sat at other local schools.

I didn’t enjoy school that much anyway before the incident, except for my friends and the sports, of course, but when this happened I thought that everything I had worked for was going down the drain. I was worried, too, that I would lose my racing career and opportunity with McLaren because Ron Dennis, just like my dad, had always told me, ‘Lewis, you’ve got to work hard at school.’ Well, I wasn’t the perfect student, but I did the best I could and did what I had to in order to get by.

Following this bad experience, and the unnecessary stresses and strains brought upon my whole family, my dad decided it was time that we moved away from Stevenage. We relocated fifteen minutes away to a lovely quiet village where no one knew us at the time. When I look back, I think what a shame it was that the end of my Stevenage school years was spoiled for me. Although the Local Education Authority has admitted it was all a mistake, neither I nor my family have received an apology, private or public. It is much too late for me now but it would be good for me to know that something like this could never happen to another pupil. One thing is for sure: without my dad’s attention to detail I would have been lost. It has given me a completely different perspective on school life.

After that I was glad to eventually leave John Henry Newman School. I moved to the Cambridge Arts and Sciences College. CATS, as it is known, was a fantastic place. The teachers were professional and the pupils too. I got the train most times until I passed my driving test and then I would drive there. It was a really good experience. I had the opportunity to stay at the College, but I did not want to share dorms with people who I did not even know and I thought I would miss my family. To be honest, looking back now, I should have boarded because it would have been good to live on my own and to spend time with people of my own age who were not from the motor racing world.

There were people of all backgrounds: wealthy kids and not-so-wealthy ones. It was a real mixed bunch. It was a pleasurable experience for me. The staff were really nice: they spoke to you on the level and not as if they were above you. I also felt more fulfilled and began to value myself differently. I was happier. I liked design, technology and music, but my dad wasn’t keen on me taking music and recommended that I do business studies. He thought that it would be more useful and relevant in motor racing and that it would give me a better chance at a decent job should I ever need it to fall back on.

I didn’t think business studies was right for me – which is probably the reason I didn’t do so well in the exam. I was not even slightly interested and if you’re forced to do something you don’t like, you’re not going to do as well in it. I was into music. I played the guitar and I also wanted to learn the drums. I always wanted to be like Phil Collins – he can play everything: guitar, drums, piano, bass guitar…Music was something I enjoyed and wanted to do at college, but in the end I listened to my dad. I still didn’t like business studies and, for that matter, some other subjects as well.

But I really enjoyed CATS and the city of Cambridge itself. Before I went there, I just thought, ‘I’m going to be a bum!’ I never said to myself, ‘I’m going to be a professional racing driver’ or anything like that. It did not cross my mind. Once I went to college, I realized that I could enjoy more things and I bucked up my ideas a lot. I felt like I really wanted to do well. Something clicked for me. It was a much smaller class and I got on well with my teachers. Bar a couple of really smart girls and maybe one smart lad, I was one of the top students in my class. I was even learning and understanding my science studies! But I am the kind of person who wants to be able to do everything. Aside from music, I particularly wanted to do French. It turned out to be my best subject. I almost aced French.

I spent some of my teenage years kart racing in France and Italy and so found it relatively easy to speak French with a French accent and Italian with an Italian accent. I speak more confidently in Italian than in French, I don’t know why. But when I go to France it all comes back to me. I want to be able to really speak it fluently, although I can’t comprehend it well. I don’t know how anyone can! How can they store all that information? Then again, I don’t really speak good enough English, let alone another language…

It got tough for me as time went by, though. My college days were Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and I had to work hard to catch up on the work I missed, because the Formula Renault single-seater testing always took place on the same days. So I took extra lessons, just as I had done when I was at secondary school when we had a tutor to help me. I had to get there an hour earlier or work later. I worked some really long days to make sure I caught up. It was the first time in my life in my academic work that I actually thought to myself, ‘I can do this and I can do well in exams.’

When I went to CATS, they were willing to give me time. They were totally open to my racing. They didn’t even ask about it. They were just…‘This is what you have to do, if that’s what you want to do then go and do it…’ They never said, ‘Oh, Lewis, you shouldn’t be taking this time off.’ They never questioned it. Instead it was, ‘Well, how can we work around it?’ And that’s why it was so good. They worked with me.

In fairness there were also some good memories from my Stevenage schooldays. I was reminded of them when Ashley Young, now a very successful professional footballer, was picked to play for England. We were in the same year and we used to play together in the school football team. From what I remember of Ashley, he was a very good football player and a nice guy.

I really liked playing football. I started in midfield and I would go into a tackle and go in so hard that I risked breaking my leg. I did not deliberately foul people, or go in with studs showing or anything like that, but I would give it a real sliding tackle and if I got the ball I would go charging off and do the best job I could with it. My problem was that I always kept my head down. I was always looking at the ball instead of where I was going and so would end up being tackled or run into another player. I always thought I did twice the amount of work of any other player on the field but for half the result! But I knew, at least, that I did the best job I could.

In general, I liked competitive sports – I didn’t want to read about the rules or go and watch it; I just wanted to do it because it was good fun – but motor racing was different. I read, studied and knew all the rules.

I was relatively good at most sports: I played for the cricket team, the basketball team, the footy team. I was on the athletics team and I did javelin, discus and the 800 metres and won the occasional event on school sports days.

Nic also loves competitive sports but is unable to compete in most. Still, he tries and he tries and he never gets down or depressed about things. If he fell over, he would get straight back up and get on with it even if he was in pain. He made such a big impact on me and on the way I think about things. Nic is blessed in so many ways.

Even now, I am sometimes quite hard on Nic about small things, I just want to help him learn and not to take anything for granted. Most importantly, I want him to do well, even better than me, in his education and exams and so I keep on top of him about this. He always tells me I am the best and he never really talks to me about my driving. He is so sensible.

CHAPTER
4
STARTING OUT

‘My dad would always stand on the inside of the circuit at the hairpin. He watched to see where the best drivers were braking…“You’ve got to brake here, at least a metre later than the other competitors.”’

MY DAD HAS ALWAYS BEEN MY MANAGER and my adviser. I remember years ago, when I was about twelve, in Junior Yamaha and at a race track giving an interview. I said, ‘My dad gives me advice on what to do on the track, but I don’t listen to it because he doesn’t know what it’s like out there.’

I regret saying that because it’s not true. I remember I was angry at the time because things were not going so well. Dad’s got a much wiser head on his shoulders than me so he knows a lot of the stuff he says is true. He’s always right. It got to the point where I took bits out of what he was saying and then added my own bit – what I thought should be right. I think that’s why we work well as a team. We gel together.

At a young age, he was very hard on me and now that I am older and a little bit wiser I fully understand and appreciate why. I can probably guarantee that he was harder on me than any other driver’s father was on his son. I don’t just mean in life at the track – I mean in life generally. He brought me up to appreciate people and to appreciate general values: you know, be polite and always say thank you, always have a smile on your face, do not be rude – all those things. If I made a mistake in that sort of area, where I wasn’t polite, I was made aware of it. I’m easy to get on with. I’m just as normal as any other driver, or any other person. When I started karting, my dad did a kind of deal with me. He said that he would support me going racing, but only if I worked harder at school. I remember my dad had to work three jobs just to make ends meet and to keep his end of the bargain. During the day he worked for British Rail – as it was back then – as a computer manager, having risen through the ranks over 14 years from an admin clerk. When he arrived back home he would go straight out again and erect ‘For Sale’ sign boards in his suit for a local estate agent. I think he only used to get 50 pence a board but it all helped and every penny counted. In any other spare time, my dad used to knock on doors trying to book double-glazing appointments for his friend Terry Holland’s business. It was not a job he enjoyed but he still did it.

The first time I sat in a go-kart was when we all went on holiday to Ibiza. It was in August 1988, and I was three years old. I had not really been anywhere abroad before then for a summer holiday, so I remember it pretty well. Both my dad and Linda were working for British Rail and they were located at King’s Cross. I remember they were living in a small one-bedroom flat in Hatfield. We stayed in a mobile home camp in Ibiza and we travelled one way by plane and one way by train as this was all they could afford. The plane journey was something they saved up for, while the train tickets were part of a concession through working for the railway. A big group of us went on that holiday. The real highlight for me in Ibiza was the trip to the kart track.

They had little electric kiddie karts and the track was very small. It was less than a hundred metres long, probably only about sixty metres, but I loved it. I got in a kart and straightaway I knew I was going to enjoy it. I remember thinking I was Ayrton Senna, it just felt natural.

After that, nobody gave it a second thought. My dad was just a railway worker and I was just a kid. We went home and I thought that was it, but my dad remembered how much we had all enjoyed it, especially me. We thought nothing of it until a couple of years later.

For my fifth birthday I got my first remote control car. I remember them putting the batteries in this little car. I drove it up and down the hallway and tried it outside, too. I really liked it. I suppose that was the beginning, or at least the beginning of the beginning. I was consciously hooked on cars from that point.

A few months later my dad brought me an even bigger and better 1/12th scale electric remote control car and spent days building it up from all the bits in a box when he came home from work. I loved it. I was always pestering him to keep recharging the batteries. Eventually my dad thought enough’s enough, if we are going to muck around with this car then let’s do it properly and join a club. So we did just that. We went down to our local model shop Models in Motion, in the Old Town in Stevenage, and we joined the racing club and went remote control car racing every weekend on Sunday mornings. It was great fun for us both. There were like fifty adults racing and just two kids – and one of them was me. I found I was really competitive. My dad loved it and pretty soon he was helping me with everything. I guess that is when he became my first mechanic.

We used to go to the shop and get all kinds of new parts, and paint, and try to improve the car. We went racing at a village called Bennington with my electric remote control car packed in the back of Linda’s car – a white Mini Metro that cost my dad £100. In my first year I came second in the club championship, having beaten the adult who had been racing for years. They were a great bunch of people from what I remember and the camaraderie was brilliant. They didn’t mind me, a little kid, joining in their fun and beating them at it. It was through the hobby shop Models in Motion that I got my chance to go on BBC television’s Blue Peter. I was just six years old. At the end of my first season the club gave me a special award for the most impressive driver – so with this and ending up on television, what more could a kid ask for!

The next step came when we moved up from electric remote control cars to a 1/8th scale petrol-engined car called a Turbo Burns. I still have the car to this day. I remember it cost my dad a whopping £250 to buy second hand from someone at the track. I was still living in Peartree Way then, with my mum, but my dad and Linda had by that time moved to Shearwater Close in Stevenage where they bought a small three-bedroomed house with its own garden. It was our house. It was when Linda was expecting Nic, so they needed more space. Dad bought the house in Shearwater Close and let the flat in Hatfield. He couldn’t really afford to keep either but somehow he just managed because he had to. It meant we were now living in Stevenage closer to my mum and that was good for me. Nic was born the following year, in March 1992, and that summer, when I was seven, I went to Rye House at Hoddesdon, in Hertfordshire, for my first ride in a real go-kart on a real kart track. My dad took me for a day out following what we thought was a successful year in remote control car racing. We knew absolutely nothing about kart racing but we were just having fun. I went out on the little circuit at the back of Rye House – I mean the little one that no one else would dare go on – and I had a really good time. I got the bug for karting from that moment. That was it, that was all I ever wanted to do. It was wicked and my dad was now in trouble!

A few weeks later, there were some pretty strange goings-on in the shed at the back of our house. My dad used to sit most nights in the shed preparing my remote control cars, a job he had done for nearly eighteen months, when suddenly he built this extension to the shed from wood that he bought down the local DIY shop. The shed door used to be located on the side of the shed but now it was transformed into a pair of front double doors. I got my first go-kart that Christmas. I remember I was at my mum’s for the morning on that Christmas Day and then I went to my dad’s house. My mum was just dropping me off and my dad wasn’t in. I looked through the letter box and I could see down the hallway and onto the table. And there, I saw something really big in wrapping paper. I guess I ruined the surprise. I remember I was walking backwards into the house trying to act like I hadn’t even noticed this big monster of a present on the table! Eventually, I got to open it after my dad strung it out and pretended it wasn’t for me. You know what: they had given me the best gift that I’d ever had in my life up to that point.

They had also bought me a pale blue driving suit and matching race gloves, and a red FM helmet. I had the biggest smile ever on my face. We went out and I drove it on the street. We lived in a quiet close so it was okay, plus it was Christmas Day so why not? It turned out that this kart was a tenth-hand, rickety old thing when dad bought it, but he worked night and day to rebuild it in his purpose-built extended shed. He did everything to make it as good as new: completely re-sprayed it and polished everything that could be polished. That way, I would fit in with all the other kids whose parents could afford brand new presents. I was truly thrilled. I was buzzing. Of course, I wanted to try it out properly and, on my birthday two weeks later, we took it down to Rye House in the back of my dad’s Vauxhall Cavalier, with boot open, kart hanging out – what a sight we were – but we didn’t care; we were going karting. I had my first run on Saturday, 9 January, two days after my birthday. I was eight years old. And the rest is history!

Seriously, it was a real big thing in my life. It was when I started my karting career. I began racing at the then Hoddes-don Kart Racing Club, Rye House which was run by Alan Kilby and Harry Sowden. I raced in the Cadet Populars class as a novice and was instantly on the pace. If you are a new driver, you have to wear black plates for your first six races so that all the other drivers know you are a novice. Over a number of weekends, I brought home six first-place novice trophies from various circuits.

I was now ready and qualified to go on to yellow plates and start racing with the bigger, more experienced, drivers. I took part in my first ‘yellow plate’ race on 2 May 1993, I think at Clay Pigeon Kart Club down in Dorset, and I won against all the odds.

In my first year of cadet karting I was quite often quicker than some of the older and more experienced kids and occasionally if I overtook them on the circuit they would come up to me off the track and warn me off. It happened to my dad also, their dads would warn my dad off. I was already learning karate and so my dad decided to take it up as well, as we thought maybe this karting stuff is a bit more physical than we first thought. We both joined the local Stevenage Shotokan Karate Club run by Mike Nursey, a 6th Dan. I managed to get up to one grade short of intermediate black belt when I was ten. A lot of people have said I am black belt and I have not really corrected them as it has been easier to just say nothing. Although I was smaller for my age than most of my competitors, I was never scared to stand up for myself. My dad reached the same grade but we were away so much with karting that it was impossible to compete for our black belts.

We would go testing at Rye House occasionally during the week but mostly every weekend. My dad would always stand on the inside of the circuit at the hairpin. He watched to see where the best drivers were braking and he would go and stand there and say to me, ‘You’ve got to brake here, at least a metre later than the other competitors.’ Then, he would move a metre further and say, ‘You’ve got to brake here!’ So I had to brake later than the drivers who were braking late and doing well. And that’s how, and where, I learned how to brake late. I was pushing and pushing, and lots of the time I went off because it was just impossible to brake that late. And he would say, ‘No, you can do it, go on, you can do it.’ Eventually, it worked and I could brake later than any of my competitors and still keep the momentum in the kart. This was one of the keys to my success on the karting circuits.

I also had my first crash at Rye House on a practice day. I think it was Saturday, 30 January, the day before my first ‘black plate’ race day. It was getting close to the circuit closing time and we were just about to finish. We were on our last couple of runs and some dude came up on the inside of me and clipped me into the first corner. I didn’t even know he was there and he sent me off flat-out into the tyre wall. I went straight into the tyres – my kart was all bent and damaged and I had a bleeding nose. My dad charged up from the bottom end of the circuit fearing that I had hurt myself, but when he got to me the first thing I said was, ‘Can you fix it for tomorrow?’ I wasn’t bothered at all about me. I was just in a bit of a daze. My dad drove all the way to the other side of London to find the parts for my Allkart. Eventually he got the necessary parts from a nice man called Bruno Ferrari. Bruno used to tune race engines for Dan Wheldon and a few others at the time. Dan was then a huge karting star even though he was only about thirteen. Anyway, my dad got the parts and fixed my kart; we went racing the next day and I brought home my first trophy!

‘Fun on three wheels during a holiday…’

My first run in a kiddie-kart during a family holiday in Ibiza in August 1988, aged three.

An early photoshoot…

My brother Nic’s third birthday party.

Happy with another grade and certificate in karate.

My first kart, aged eight.

Preparing for my first race in my new kart and helmet.

Champions of the Future – a cadet race winner.

Me with Ron Dennis, at the Belgian Grand Prix in 1996.

Kart Masters – and another win!

Meeting Murray Walker at the Autosport Awards 1995.

Team MBM – alongside fellow racer Nico Rosberg in 2001.

Formula Renault with Nic in 2001.

Becoming 2000 Formula A European Champion.

Prince Charles came to the McLaren factory at Woking where we swapped a few tips on racing.

My dad has always been my manager and mentor – and also my chief mechanic when karts needed fixing.

You win some, you lose some – it can be a lonely place sometimes.

‘Meeting David Couthard at the McLaren Mercedes Young Driver Support Programme in 1998.’

Posing for the camera in the old McLaren trophy room.

Dreaming and hoping that one day…

Spending time playing pool with Nic.

Playing the guitar, and music in general, is one of my favourite ways of chilling out and relaxing.

Eventually I competed in events all over the country nearly every two weeks. I remember going up to Larkhall, in Scotland, and staying in this weird hotel where everything was painted black. It was a real scary Addams Family type of place! And there was a place called Rowrah up in the Lake District way up north, where it seemed to rain non-stop. But it was all good experience, travelling out into the middle of nowhere just to race karts. The whole family used to go along in my dad’s red Vauxhall Cavalier with a little old box trailer that danced around all over the place behind us. We stuck all the gear in this little box thing, then we put the go-kart on top of it, with all these different straps to stop the thing from flying away. And off we’d go.

When I was nine, I entered my first British Cadet Kart Championship. We had sold our old Allkart and bought a new bright green Zip Kart made by Martin Hines. Martin owned the company and was a very successful figure in the karting business and he ran a team called the Zip Young Guns. We couldn’t afford to be in the Zip Young Guns team and so remained independent but with advice, help and assistance from Martin.

Eventually, we bought a larger second-hand box trailer with a roller door on the back, which was a huge improvement. But then the poor old Cavalier had to drag this heavy trailer around all the time. I remember we would travel up to Larkhall in the wind and the rain, and when we arrived most of the other competitors had camper vans or caravans, while we had a box trailer. Linda would have to bring the microwave and kettle from the kitchen and sit in the back of the box trailer during the cold and windy days with Nic, then aged two, on her lap. That was hard on everyone but they did it for me and we thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

By this time, my dad had even got a Calor gas heater and put it at the back of the trailer. So Linda and Nic were in the back, jackets on, freezing cold, and then there was me and my dad, at the front of the trailer trying to prepare the kart. I remember Linda always brought a red flask along, full of chicken noodle soup.

After that weekend, my dad said ‘never again’ and somehow worked a few more jobs to buy a really old Bedford camper van that Linda named ‘Maureen’. Life started to get better. No more cold, damp soggy baps but instead we had toast in the mornings before a race – heaven!

It is hard for any family who have to find the money to race, particularly so in the case of my parents who just had normal day jobs. For those first three or four years, before we had backing from McLaren, it was probably a lot more of a strain for my family than it was for me, and especially for my dad. For me, it was just get in the camper, go to the racetrack, sign on, do my driver’s briefing and then go and race – and that felt natural. We didn’t always win; it was tough and I’d get grumpy like a spoilt kid. I just did not like to lose – and neither did my dad.

From these early days my dad has been my manager, with Linda in full support. It has really been a family team, Nic included. Occasionally our relationship has been strained by the pressures of motor racing but that is just normal. My dad has been the motivator and the strength that keeps us all going. To be father and manager can be tricky; it is not easy balancing both of those roles. Sometimes, I know I can be very cold and just treat him as a manager, but then I love him to bits for what he is and what he’s done for me – and he’s my dad! It’s not straightforward. You wake up and he’s the first, or second, person you see and so you’ve got that natural bond. Then you remember he is your manager too. But it works for us. And my dad, and my family, have made more sacrifices than you would believe.

I have proved him wrong at some points in my life, but, like I said, he is almost always right. Even though he is not the driver experiencing what I am experiencing, he is just as involved as me, if not more. He is just trying to do his best. It is a very strange relationship we have because he is so driven. He is so committed but never ever pushy. I said I wanted to race karts and he said, ‘Okay, if we are going to do it, then we are going to do it properly or not at all’ and that was it. It was either everything or nothing and that is still where I am today.

My step-mum, Linda, is fantastic. I was so young when my dad met Linda that I did not understand what had gone on between my parents. It tells you something about a person when they are prepared to take on the responsibility of looking after someone else’s kid: me. Ninety per cent of the people I know that have divorced parents and step-parents have a tough time because one does not like the other. Linda is Nic’s mum and what I love about her is the fact that she had Nic, her real son, but never ever treated us differently. My dad could not have picked a better step-mum for me. As I said earlier, Linda is the best step-mum in the world.

I honestly do not think I would be where I am today if my parents and step-parents had not worked hard together. With my brother, as we grow up, the bond is getting stronger and stronger. For me, it’s the most valuable thing I have in my life. My dad has been the main driving force for me. The way I am now is down to him. A lot of my friends did not have their fathers around and mine was there for me. So, respect to him for that. He has certain morals and there are a lot of important values that he has taught me. I know some people say he is overprotective, but he has always been committed to making sure that I maximize my opportunities to have a better life than he had. Dad is the one who started it all when I was just a boy. Without him, I do not think any of this would have happened at all.

CHAPTER
5
CLIMBING

‘There was a point where I asked myself, “Am I going to be able to do this?” I remember sitting with my dad in the car telling him that I wanted to stop…he just said, “Yeah, okay, we’ll just stop.” He didn’t really mean it, but I was doubting myself, not feeling that I was the man at all.’

I REMEMBER IT SO CLEARLY: me on the passenger seat of this old camper van and my dad driving, the two of us singing together: ‘We are the champions, we are the champions’…At the end, the song goes ‘of the world’ but we sang ‘of England’, or ‘of Britain’, or something like that. It was a great day. And it was just the start…

In the early karting years, when I was between eight and twelve years of age, it was all great fun – the travelling, the competitions, meeting different people in different places and just generally having good family time together – but it started to get pretty serious when I won my first British Cadet Kart Championship in 1995 at the age of ten.

The year before, I’d experienced the real dangers of motor racing for the first time. I remember it was early May and I was at Rye House. I had just finished a race and my dad, quietly, came over to me and said, ‘Lewis, Ayrton Senna’s just died…He’s had a terrible crash at Imola…’I remember how I did not want to show emotion in front of my dad because I thought he would have a go at me and so I walked round the back, where no one was looking, and I just cried. I really struggled the rest of that day. I could not stop imagining what had gone on. I was only nine years old. The man who inspired me was dead. He was a superhero, you know, and that was him…just gone.

In 1996 I won the McLaren Mercedes Cadet Champions of the Future Series and the Sky TV Masters title. After that, we moved up into Junior Yamaha in 1997. There was a lot of talk about which was the best standard and category to be in. We chose Junior Yamaha because we thought it was a better career path than Junior TKM, the rival series. People would say we were avoiding TKM because it had fiercer competition but we knew where we were headed and what we wanted to learn from our racing and it wasn’t to be found in Junior TKM, although it was also a great series.

That year I won both the McLaren Mercedes Junior Yamaha Champion of the Future series and the British Super One Junior Yamaha Kart Championship with a round to spare. That was also the year when I was invited, by Ron Dennis, to go to Belgium, to the Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps as part of the prize for winning the championship.

In 1998, I was invited to be a part of the McLaren Mercedes Young Driver Support Programme. This was a golden opportunity to be supported by a major Formula One team and car manufacturer. My dad was delighted. As I have said, we were not exactly rolling in cash and, although we were getting by, the McLaren contract certainly provided us with the financial comfort that all young budding racing drivers desired.

I also raced in Europe for the first time, helped by the recommendation of Martin Hines to the Italian Top Kart manufacturer and racing team. I had my first European race in Belgium and it was not a great race, but it was just good showing up. I impressed the people from Top Kart and we got another chance to race for them, in Italy. I did my first race in Parma and in the same race was this kid called Nico Rosberg, now a Formula One driver with Williams. I remember we had this awesome race where I was behind him, both of us miles in front of the other guys. I just sat on his tail the whole race, played it cool, and then on the last lap I overtook him on a straight and won the race. That was the day Nico’s father, Keke Rosberg, the 1982 Formula One World Champion, came up to me and said, ‘That was an awesome race, well done’ and that’s when my relationship with Nico started. From then on, we became best friends, hanging around with each other all the time throughout our teenage karting years.

A few months later we went to Hockenheim for the German Grand Prix. Keke, Nico and I sat down with Ron Dennis. He said to us, ‘I’m planning to put together a team. Are you two going to be able to stay friends if we have this team and you’re competing against each other?’ We said ‘Yes’ without hesitation and Keke created our own kart team called Team MBM. We never really found out what the MBM stood for but I assumed it meant Mercedes-Benz McLaren. We raced together in 2000 and had a fantastic year winning nearly every major race in our class. That was one of the most amazing years of my career: I won the European Championship and the World Cup in Japan. I especially remember one weekend, in the European Championship, at a place called Val d’Argenton in France, for very special reasons.

The week before, I had fallen off my bike and hurt my wrist. I tried to hide the swelling because I was really worried about what my dad would say but the pain was so bad I eventually had to tell him what had happened. My dad called Ron Dennis and asked for his help. Ron called the then Formula One doctor Professor Sid Watkins and a friend who put my wrist in a special cast. So, we travelled over to France and took part in the race weekend. I won my first two heats, then suddenly someone complained to the Clerk of the Course about my plaster cast. The next thing I knew, I was excluded from the event. Naturally, with the European Championship at stake, my dad pleaded with whoever would listen but eventually he contacted Ron to explain what had happened. Ron was actually at the Austrian Grand Prix but he spoke with a Senior Member of the FIA who intervened and I was reinstated. I missed one of my heats and therefore started lower on the grid for the first final but still managed to win both feature races, the second one ahead of Robert Kubica, who is now racing for BMW in Formula One.

I had a bad year in karts in 2001 when Nico and I thought we would move up to the final karting class – Formula Super A as it was then – and try to win the championship. It didn’t go well at all. We were developing our own chassis with Dino Cheisa our Team MBM manager and it was tough but it was something we wanted to do for Dino and his team. It was a good learning experience.

At the end of the year we went to single-seaters. McLaren arranged for me to have a test with Manor Motorsport in their Formula Renault car. It was always going to be tricky, never having been in a racing car before, and I crashed after about three laps, taking out the right rear corner of the car. It did not put them off too much though, and after they fixed the car I got straight back in and did okay. I started my first year of the British Formula Renault series in 2001 with Manor Motorsport. Moving on from my fantastic years in karting to single-seater racing was something I had been looking forward to for some time. I had my first race at Donington Park in November. I had qualified fifth. I remember all these cars shooting past me at the start. It was like I had never raced before – well, I hadn’t in cars. I couldn’t believe just how different it was in cars as opposed to karts. In karting I was a king, but now in single-seaters I was back to basics. It was so aggressive on that first lap it was unreal, and I was like, ‘Shoot, I’m going to have to pull my finger out!’ It was not like karting, where you could just roll around the paddock and have some fun, get in the kart and drive. You had to be there paying attention to all the data, working with the engineers and all that stuff.

In 2002 I had quite tough times through the Formula Renault days and there were moments when I would come home and my dad was on at me for one thing or another. I was having problems keeping up at school, I was struggling. Actually, there was a point where I asked myself, ‘Am I going to be able to do this?’ I remember sitting with my dad in the car, telling him that I wanted to stop. My dad is very emotional about my racing and, being peed off, he just said, ‘Yeah, okay, we’ll just stop.’ He didn’t really mean it, but I was doubting myself, not feeling that I was the man at all. But things changed: from that low point in my life I got myself together, won some races and then came third in my first full year of Formula Renault.

The next year, 2003, I had a slow start before something just clicked, and then I just blew everyone away. I won ten races out of fifteen that season. I came second in two of them and third in one and because I had won the championship, I did not have to race the last two races. It was such a great year with Manor Motorsport’s Formula Renault team that I decided I wanted to stay with Manor and move up into the British Formula Three series with them for a couple of end of season races. From the first time in the car I was quick and setting the pace but I had much to learn. Although my pace was good the races didn’t quite finish as I expected. I had a huge shunt at Brands Hatch where I had the misfortune of being involved in someone else’s accident but, that aside, I had a fantastic time.

For 2004, the team decided to move from the British Formula Three series to the Formula Three Euroseries with me as their driver. I did okay but it was the absolutely worst year of my racing career both because of the car and my relationship with the team. It was obviously difficult for the team as it was their first year in the championship and neither they nor I had ever raced on most of the European circuits before. It was a huge learning curve for us all, but I did feel that I was the one being blamed for poor results. It did cause quite a lot of tension between the team, me and my dad. In what I felt were very challenging circumstances, I won one race and finished fifth overall. This was a very frustrating period. Towards the end of that year, I had a really, really difficult time when we fell out of contract with McLaren. We were unhappy about the year we had just had and this was part of the reason that we had a disagreement over where I should race in 2005. I wanted to move on but McLaren recommended that I stay another year in Formula Three with Manor. This was not what I wanted. I had given it much thought over the previous few months and had also discussed it with my family and I eventually decided that I was prepared to give up my contract with McLaren rather than stay for another year. McLaren couldn’t see it at the time and told me to go away at the end of 2004 and analyse my next move.

I had been at Manor Motorsport for three years and thought it was a good time to move on. I wanted to go some where else and learn from other people. I thought I could do that in GP2. McLaren disagreed. So we came out of contract.

My last two races of 2004 were to be in Macau and Bahrain and, as I was now without McLaren, I had to find my own sponsorship money to get there. I was going through a tough time with everything in my life. The team I had always wanted to be a part of had cancelled my contract because of a disagreement about the next step in my career. My dad and I then set about finding sponsorship money. My girlfriend at the time, Jodia, said, ‘Hey, my dad owns this company in Hong Kong, and he would love to sponsor you.’ I told her there was no way I wanted her to do that, but she went and sorted it out anyway. Basically, Jo’s dad paid for my racing in Macau. It was a last attempt for me to make an impression in the world of Formula Three. So I went to Macau and won the first race with Jo’s dad’s company livery on my car but unfortunately crashed out on the second lap of the main race having started from pole position. It was one of the most disappointing races of my life. I thought the whole world had folded in on me and that was it – the end.

My dad was devastated because here we were with no McLaren Mercedes-Benz contract, no money, and no takers. The following weekend we were in Bahrain for the Formula Three Superprix, which was the last race of the year for Formula Three. The Manor Motorsport team actually funded this race which was much appreciated and pretty incredible considering the tough year we’d had until then and I remain grateful to all the guys at Manor Motorsport. In qualifying, I made a huge mistake. I ended up twenty-second on the grid after damaging my rear floor on the kerb. It was a really low point. My dad was unhappy that I had possibly just blown a great opportunity to shine after the disappointment of Macau. We were both devastated but my dad in particular because as usual he felt responsible for everything, the loss of McLaren, the situation we were in, and he was worried about where he would find the money to keep my career going and to fund the following year’s racing. He was so depressed and worried that he booked an early flight home so that he could make better use of his time making calls and focusing on getting help. I know he was really feeling the pressure because I had no sponsor and at that stage not enough good performances to attract new ones. Before he left, he made sure I knew all about it, leaving me to kick myself for the rest of that day and all night.

I woke up in the morning with a fresh head and feeling more determined than ever. For the Sunday race, my dad had the team stick his company name on the side of the car. The company was called Hedge-Connect. Hedge-Connect was a disaster recovery business and it was incredibly appropriate as I eventually found out. I started the first race twenty-second on the grid and finished eleventh. In the second and main race, I started eleventh and finished first. I couldn’t believe it – from nothing I had triumphed. It was awesome. Afterwards, I called my dad and he was stunned. No one could believe it – I had come from twenty-second in the first race to win in the main race. The racing magazines called it my ‘Bahrain Transplant’ and a transplant it certainly was. From a bad weekend in Macau to winning unexpectedly in Bahrain, everything had changed instantly, as it can do in motor racing. In karting, I had won from the back many times, but to do it in a single-seater…it just does not happen. I stayed in Bahrain that night with my team and it was great. The next thing I knew, Martin Whitmarsh from McLaren came on the phone to congratulate me and said, ‘We’ll discuss where we can go from here.’ That was typical of Martin and Ron, they were always there somewhere in the background keeping an eye on me. They really cared and wanted to help but also wanted us to learn the hard way.

Throughout my time supported by McLaren Mercedes, a lot of people, and not only some of my competitors, disliked me for the fact that I had this McLaren contract at such a young age. Some people wanted what I had and thought it was easy for me because my racing was fully funded. But keeping a sponsor like McLaren, the biggest company in Formula One, was not exactly easy. Imagine having Ron Dennis call you, having that pressure…I knew if I had any problems at school or if I did not keep performing, I would lose the opportunity. Everyone said I would be nothing without McLaren – but I did not have McLaren for those two weeks in Asia. In fact, I did not have McLaren for the first five years of my racing career but I had still won championships. After a difficult weekend in Macau, I then went out to Bahrain and proved I could win even when times were bad. I had turned things round as I had to and it was a most pleasurable feeling. I do not think for one moment that coming out of contract was just a bluff; at the time I really thought I had lost McLaren.

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