Lewis Hamilton Trivia: 43 mind-blowing facts about the Formula One driver!

Lewis Hamilton is a British Formula One racing driver from England, currently racing for the Mercedes AMG Petronas team. He is the 2008, 2014 and 2015 Formula One World Champion.

Let’s see some amazing facts about him!

1. Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton was born 7 January 1985 in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England.

2. Even though it is widely reported as being named after American sprinter Carl Lewis, Hamilton states that this is not the case.

3. Hamilton’s mother, Carmen, is white British, while his father, Anthony Hamilton, is black British, making him mixed-race.

4. Anthony Hamilton’s parents moved to the UK from Grenada in the 1950s.

5. Lewis Hamilton’s parents separated when he was two,as a result of this, he lived with his mother and half-sisters Nicola and Samantha until he was twelve, when he started living with his father, stepmother Linda and half-brother Nicolas, also a professional racing driver, who has cerebral palsy.

6. In early 2011, Nicolas signed with Total Control Racing to start a racing career in the 2011 Renault Clio Cup.[20] Hamilton was raised a Roman Catholic.

7. Anthony Hamilton, Lewis’s father, celebrating with his son after the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix. From this point until March 2010, Anthony Hamilton was the driver’s manager.
Hamilton’s father bought him a radio-controlled car in 1991, which gave him his first taste of racing competition.

8. Hamilton finished second in the national BRCA championship the following year.

9. As a result of this his father bought him his first go-kart as a Christmas present at the age of six.

10. His father told him that he would support his racing career as long as he worked hard at school.

11. Supporting his son became problematic, which caused him to take redundancy from his position as an IT Manager and become a contractor.

12. He was sometimes employed in up to three jobs at a time, while still managing to find enough time to attend all Hamilton’s races.

13. He later set up his own computer company as well as working as a full-time manager for Hamilton.

14. Hamilton ended his working relationship with his father in early 2010 and subsequently signed a management deal in March 2011 with Simon Fuller’s firm XIX Entertainment.

15. In November 2014, Hamilton announced that he would not be renewing his management contract with Fuller.

16. Hamilton was educated at The John Henry Newman School, a voluntary aided Catholic secondary school in Stevenage, Hertfordshire.

17. Alongside his interest for racing, he played association football for his school team with England international midfielder Ashley Young.

18. Hamilton said that if Formula One had not worked for him he would have been a footballer, being a big fan of Arsenal F.C. or a cricketer, having played both for his school teams as a youngster.

19. He subsequently attended, in February 2001, Cambridge Arts and Sciences (CATS), a private sixth-form college in Cambridge.

20. At the age of five Hamilton took up karate to defend himself as a result of bullying at school.

21. At around 12, he learned to ride a unicycle, as part of his karting rivalry with future F1 Mercedes teammate, Nico Rosberg, who could already ride one.

22. In December 1995, at the age of ten, he approached McLaren team principal Ron Dennis at the Autosport Awards ceremony and told him, “I want to race for you one day … I want to race for McLaren.”

23. Less than three years later McLaren and Mercedes-Benz signed him to their Young Driver Support Programme.

24. After winning the British Formula Renault, Formula Three Euroseries, and GP2championships on his way up the racing career ladder, he drove for McLaren in 2007, making his Formula One debut 12 years after his initial encounter with Dennis.

25. Hamilton’s contract for the McLaren driver development program made him the youngest ever driver to secure a contract which later resulted in a Formula One drive.

26. Coming from a mixed background, Hamilton is often labelled “the first black driver in Formula One”, although Willy T. Ribbs tested a Formula One car in 1986.

27. In his first season in Formula One, Hamilton set numerous records while finishing second in the 2007 Formula One Championship, just one point behind Kimi Räikkönen.

28. He won the World Championship the following season in dramatic fashion, becoming the then-youngest Formula One world champion in history before Sebastian Vettel broke the record two years later.

29. Following his second world title in 2014, he was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year. In 2015, he became the first British driver in history to win consecutive F1 titles, and the second Brit to win three titles after Jackie Stewart.

30. He also became the first English driver to reach that milestone. He is the first driver in the history of F1 to have made the podium after starting 20th place or lower at least 3 times.

31. He is the only driver in the history of the sport to have won at least one race in each season he has competed to date, with McLaren from 2007 until 2012, and with Mercedes since 2013.

32. He has more race victories than any other British driver in the history of Formula One and is currently third on the all-time wins list, with 50 wins.

33. Raised a Roman Catholic, Hamilton considers himself a devout Christian and wears a cross during his races. He believes that his faith has helped him deal with seemingly everything that has been thrown at him and become the racing champion he is today.

34. He keeps his helmet on during training, even wearing it at night with weights stacked atop it to increase his neck-strength.

35. His greatest fear is being eaten alive by a great white shark.

36. In November 2007, Hamilton started dating Nicole Scherzinger, the lead singer of the American girl band Pussycat Dolls. It was announced in January 2010 that they split up to focus on their respective careers.

37. However, they were seen together at the 2010 Turkish Grand Prix and at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal, on 13 June 2010.

38. The couple split up and reunited numerous times between 2011 and 2013, but appeared to have got back together in November 2013.

39. They split up again in February 2015.

40. On 18 March 2009, Madame Tussauds unveiled a waxwork of Hamilton in his Vodafone McLaren Mercedes race suit. This wax replica cost around £150,000 and took over six months to complete.

41. In 2012, Hamilton featured in the cartoon Tooned, alongside Jenson Button and comedian Alexander Armstrong.

42. On 18 December 2007, Hamilton was suspended from driving in France for a month after being caught speeding at 196 km/h (122 mph) on a French motorway. His Mercedes-Benz CLK was also impounded.

43. One of Hamilton’s favourite cars is the AC Cobra. He owns two unrestored 1967 models, one black and one red.