| Biography of Lewis Hamilton |
 Lewis Carl Hamilton (born January 7, 1985 in Tewin, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom) is a British Formula One racing driver for the McLaren team.
Personal and early life
Lewis Hamilton was born in Stevenage, Hertfordshire on January 7, 1985. His father's parents had immigrated to the United Kingdom from the Caribbean island of Grenada.
Racing career
Pre-Formula One
Karting
Hamilton began karting in 1995 at the age of eight, and quickly began winning races and championships.
He progressed through the Cadet (1995-6), Junior Yamaha (1997), Junior Intercontinental A (1998-9), Intercontinental A (1999) and Formula A (2000) ranks in six seasons. Following his karting successes the British Racing Drivers’ Club made him a ‘Rising Star’ Member in 2000.
Junior Formulas
Hamilton began his car racing career in the 2001 British Formula Renault Winter Series, finishing fifth overall. This led to a full 2002 Formula Renault UK campaign with Manor Motorsport. Hamilton finished third overall with one win. He remained with Manor for another year and won the championship convincingly with ten wins, beating Alex Lloyd with 419 points to 377. But his debut appearance in British Formula Three was less successful – Hamilton crashed out of both races at the Brands Hatch season finale, being taken to hospital after the second.
Hamilton and Manor made their debut in the 2004 Formula Three Euroseries. They won just one race and Hamilton was fifth in the championship. He also won the Bahrain F3 Superprix, race one of the Macau F3 Grand Prix, and had his first test in a McLaren F1 car in December. He defected to 2004 champions ASM for the following season and dominated the championship, winning 15 of the 20 rounds. He also won the Ultimate Masters of Formula 3 at Zandvoort.
After the season British magazine Autosport featured him in their “Top 50 Drivers of 2005” issue, ranking Hamilton 24th. This success led him to join the ART Grand Prix in the 2006. Like ASM in F3, ART were reigning champions having taken the 2005 GP2 crown with Nico Rosberg.
Despite stiff opposition from more experienced rivals who had raced in GP2 in 2005, such as team mate Alexandre Prémat and Nelson Angelo Piquet, Hamilton won the GP2 championship at his first attempt[3]. Among his notable performances were a dominant win in the fifth round at the Nurburgring, which he won in spite of a penalty for speeding in the pits. Although all drivers in GP2 have access to the same machinery, Hamilton proved capable of regularly lapping over a second per lap faster than his rivals.
At his home race at Silverstone, supporting the British Grand Prix, he impressed again by overtaking two rivals at Becketts, a series of high-speed (up to 150 mph in a GP2 car) bends where overtaking is rare. He demonstrated his overtaking prowess again at the race in Istanbul, although he failed to win on that occasion. He became GP2 champion in unusual circumstances. Giorgio Pantano won the penultimate race at Monza, and set the fastest lap on the final lap, initially taking this bonus point from Hamilton. However, it transpired that he had set this under a yellow flag, indicating to the ofificals that he had not slowed enough to avoid potential danger, leading to him losing the fastest lap, which instead gave Hamilton the single point he needed.
2007: Formula One
Lewis enjoyed a very succesful first few day of testing for McLaren in November 2006; he was considerably quicker than both his team-mate (veteran Pedro De La Rosa) and the rest of the field. He was more than 0.7 seconds quicker than anyone else over the three days of testing.
2007 Onward: McLaren
As early as 1994 Hamilton had introduced himself to McLaren team boss Ron Dennis, at that Year's Autosport Awards, asking if he could drive for the team in the future.
In 1998 he was signed to the McLaren Driver Development Support programme. The contract included a future option on an F1 seat making Hamilton, 13 at the time, the youngest driver ever to have an F1 contract.
His 2006 GP2 championship coincided with a vacancy at McLaren following the departure of Juan Pablo Montoya to NASCAR and Kimi Räikkönen to Ferrari.
After a long period of speculation of whether he, Pedro de la Rosa, Gary Paffett, or even Mika Hakkinen would drive for McLaren alongside World Champion Fernando Alonso for the 2007 Formula One season, Hamilton was confirmed as the team's second driver. He was told of McLaren’s decision on September 30th, but the news was not made public until November 24th, for fear that it would be overshadowed by Michael Schumacher’s retirement announcement.
Hamilton will be the first black driver to compete in Formula 1[dubious — see talk page], 20 years after Willy T. Ribbs became the first black person to test a Formula One car
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