Lewis Hamilton Biography, Career, Contract, Championships, Shakira, Wife, Latest News, Age, Net Worth, And More

Lewis Hamilton is a British racing driver currently competing in Formula One, driving for Mercedes. Hamilton entered McLaren’s young driver program in 1998. This led to  Formula One driving for McLaren from 2007 to 2012, when Hamilton was the first and so far only black driver to compete in the series. In his debut season, Hamilton set several records when he finished second behind Kimi Räikkönen by one point. The following season he won his maiden title in dramatic fashion – making a decisive pass on the last lap of the final race of the season – at the time becoming the youngest ever Formula 1 world champion. After six years at McLaren, Hamilton signed with Mercedes in 2013.

Lewis Hamilton Personal Life

Lewis Hamilton was born on 7 January 1985 in Stevenage, United Kingdom to Carmen Larbalestier, is White British, and from Birmingham, and Anthony Hamilton, is black and is of Grenadian descent. When Hamilton was two years old her parents separated, after which he lived with his mother and older half-sisters, Samantha and Nicola, until he was twelve. Later, Hamilton lived with his father, stepmother Linda, and his half-brother Nicolas, who is also a professional racing driver.

Hamilton said he started karate at age 5 to protect himself from being bullied at school. He was also suspended from school for a period when he was mistakenly identified as assaulting a fellow student who was hospitalized with injuries.

Lewis Hamilton Career

Hamilton started karting in 1993 and quickly began winning races and cadet championships. Two years later, at the age of 10, he became the youngest driver to win the British Cadet Karting Championship. That year, Hamilton approached McLaren Formula 1 team principal Ron Dennis at the motorsport awards and said: “Hello. I’m Lewis Hamilton. I won the British championship and one day I want to race your cars.” Dennis wrote Hamilton’s autographed book: “Call me in nine years, and we’ll figure something out.”  When Hamilton was 12, Ladbrokes took a bet, I said 40/1 that Hamilton would win a Formula 1 race before he was 23. ; another predicted at odds of 150/1 that he would win the world drivers’ championship before the age of 25.

In 1998, Dennis called Hamilton after his second Super One Series and British Championship win to offer Hamilton a role in McLaren’s driver development program. The contract included an option for a future Formula One seat, making Hamilton the youngest driver to receive a contract that would eventually lead to Formula One racing. Hamilton continued his success in Intercontinental A (1999), Formula A (2000), and Formula Super A (2001) and became the European champion in 2000 with maximum points. In Formula A and Formula Super-A, competing for TeamMBM.com, his teammate was Nico Rosberg, who later drove in Formula 1 for Williams and Mercedes; they later rejoined the Mercedes team from 2013 to 2016. Following his karting successes, the British Racing Drivers’ Club made him a “Rising Star” Member in 2000. In 2001, Michael Schumacher made a one-off return to karts and competed against Hamilton along with other future Formula One drivers Vitantonio Liuzzi and Nico Rosberg. Hamilton ended the final in seventh, four places behind Schumacher. Hamilton began his car racing career in the 2001 British Formula Renault Winter Series, finishing fifth in the standings. This led to a full 2002 Formula Renault UK campaign with Manor Motorsport in which he finished third overall. He remained with Manor for another year, winning the championship ahead of Alex Lloyd. Having clinched the championship, Hamilton missed the last two races of the season to make his debut in the season finale of the British Formula 3 Championship. In his first race, he was forced out with a puncture, and in the second he crashed out and was taken to hospital after a collision with teammate Tor Graves.

Asked in 2002 about the prospect of becoming one of the youngest ever Formula One driver, Hamilton replied that his goal was “not to be the youngest in Formula One” but rather “to be experienced and then show what I can do in Formula One”. He made his debut with Manor in the 2004 Formula 3 Euro Series, ending the year fifth in the championship. He also won the Bahrain F3 Superprix and twice raced in the Macau F3 Grand Prix. Williams had come close to signing Hamilton but did not because BMW, their engine supplier at the time, would not fund him. Hamilton eventually re-signed with McLaren. According to the McLaren executive and future CEO Martin Whitmarsh, who was responsible for guiding Hamilton through the team’s young driver program, he and Anthony Hamilton had a “huge row” at the end of the season, with Lewis’ father pushing for him to move up to GP2 for 2005, while Whitmarsh felt that he should remain in F3 for a second season, culminating in Whitmarsh tearing up Lewis’ contract; however, Lewis called Whitmarsh six weeks later and re-signed with the team.

Hamilton first tested for McLaren in late 2004 at Silverstone. Hamilton moved to the reigning Euro Series champions ASM for the 2005 season and dominated the championship, winning 15 of the 20 rounds. He also won the Marlboro Masters of Formula 3 at Zandvoort. Hamilton moved to ASM’s sister GP2 team, ART Grand Prix, for the 2006 season. Hamilton won the GP2 championship on his first attempt, beating Nelson Piquet Jr. and Timo Glock. He secured a dominant win at the Nürburgring, despite a penalty for speeding in the pit lane. At his home race at Silverstone, Hamilton overtook two rivals at Becketts, a series of high-speed bends where overtaking is rare. In Istanbul, he recovered from a spin that left him in eighteenth place to take second. Hamilton won the title in unusual circumstances, inheriting the final point he needed after Giorgio Pantano was stripped of the fastest lap in the Monza feature race. Hamilton’s success in the GP2 championship coincided with a vacancy at McLaren following the departure of Juan Pablo Montoya to NASCAR and Kimi Räikkönen to Ferrari.

Hamilton’s first season in Formula 1 saw him double partner and defending world champion Fernando Alonso. Hamilton is the first and, as of 2022, the only black driver competing in the series. After his debut podium finish, Hamilton set several records when he finished second to Kimi Räikkönen at the 2007 World Championship by one point, including the most consecutive podium finishes from a debut (9), he tied for most wins in a rookie season (4) and most points in a rookie season (109). During the season, Hamilton and Alonso were involved in a series of incidents that caused tension between both the drivers and the team, culminating in Alonso and McLaren terminating their contracts by mutual consent in November. After a successful first season with McLaren, Hamilton signed a multi-million-pound contract to stay with the team until 2012. Hamilton dramatically won his first championship at the final race of the season, the 2008 Brazilian GP, ​​beating Timo Glock. fifth in the closing corners of the final lap, becoming the youngest Formula One World Champion in history and denying race winner Massa the title by a single point. This made Hamilton the first British driver to win the world title since Damon Hill in 1996. In his final four years at McLaren, Hamilton continued to score podiums and wins.

Hamilton entered the final round of the 2010 season with a chance to win the title but ended up finishing fourth as Sebastian Vettel won to lift his first driver’s crown. The following year was the first season he was beaten by a teammate, with Jenson Button finishing second to champion Sebastian Vettel in a year when distractions in his personal life and conflicts with FIA officials put Hamilton in charge. A lowly fifth, after which he vowed to return to form before 2012. Hamilton took four race wins in the 2012 season, finishing fourth in the standings. Before the end of the year, Hamilton made a surprise announcement that he would join Mercedes for the 2013 season, replacing the retired Michael Schumacher. When Hamilton signed with Mercedes in 2013, he was reunited with childhood karting teammate Nico Rosberg. Scholars and the public were surprised by the change, as some saw the switch to Mercedes, which had no recent success, as a gamble. In his first season with the Silver Arrows, Hamilton secured his only race, winning the Hungarian GP, ​​where he converted an unexpected pole position to win by more than 11 seconds over second-placed Kimi Räikkö. With several podiums and pole positions, again finished fourth in the standings for the third time in five years.

Rule changes for the 2014 season, which forced the use of turbo-hybrid engines, helped usher in a very successful era for Hamilton. That year, Mercedes won 16 of the season’s 19 races, 11 of which were secured by Hamilton as he clinched victory in the season-long title duel with teammate Rosberg. Before the start of the 2015 season, Hamilton announced that he would not take the opportunity to change his number 1 car, which was his prerogative as reigning world champion, but would continue to race in the career number 44. This was the first season. since 1994 when Alain Prost retired from the sport in his for the fourth and final championship – the field has not had a number 1 car since the 1993 title. Hamilton dominated the 2015 season, winning ten races and finishing on the podium a record seventeen times, beating his hero Ayrton Senna to three world championships. The rivalry between him and Rosberg deepened, culminating in a heated battle at the US GP where Hamilton won a spirited wheel-to-wheel battle with his teammate to win the championship with three races remaining. That year, Hamilton extended his contract with Mercedes for a further three years in a deal worth over £100 million, making him one of the highest-paid drivers in Formula 1 and allowing Hamilton to continue. own image rights, considered unusual in the sport, and keep their championship-winning car and trophy. Despite recording more poles and races than any other driver in 2016, Hamilton lost the driver’s title to teammate Rosberg by five points. The team’s policy of allowing the pair to battle freely led to a series of heated exchanges on and off the track, culminating in Hamilton defying team orders at the season-ending race in Abu Dhabi and deliberately slowing Rosberg back to chase late in the race. racing in a failed bid to encourage other drivers to pass his teammate, which would have given him a shot at the title. In the end, Hamilton’s poor start early in the season and a crucial engine failure in Malaysia meant that Rosberg won the title, which he was able to secure before announcing his retirement from the sport shortly after beating his rival.

Following Rosberg’s retirement, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel became Hamilton’s closest rival as the pair traded the championship lead in a tense title battle in 2017. Hamilton won 11 poles during the season, giving him the record for most poles, consistency (in points in each race), and the lack of a major challenge from new teammate Valtteri Bottas. he made it nine races and secured his fourth world title when he overcame a points deficit with Vettel in the first half of the season to end the championship in Mexico with two races remaining.

The 2018 season was the first time that two four-time World Champions, Hamilton and Vettel, would be competing for a fifth title and was billed as the “Fight for Five” by journalists and fans. As with the season before, Ferrari and Vettel appeared to have the upper hand for much of the season, topping the standings until the halfway point. However, Vettel’s season unraveled with several driver and mechanical errors, while Hamilton’s run of six wins in seven in the latter half of the season saw Hamilton clinch the title in Mexico for a second year running as he set a new record for the most points scored in a season (408). During the season, Hamilton signed a two-year contract with Mercedes, reported to be worth up to £40 million per year, making him the best-paid Formula One driver in history. Having signed a contract with Mercedes that lasted until 2020, it was confirmed Hamilton would defend his title in 2019. Hamilton led the drivers’ standings for the majority of the season, fending off title challenges from team-mate Bottas, the Honda-powered Red Bull of Verstappen, and Ferrari’s recently promoted Leclerc, to clinch his sixth drivers’ crown at the 2019 United States Grand Prix with two races remaining. After scoring his sixth career grand slam in the final race of the season, Hamilton ended the season with 11 wins (matching his previous best in 2014 and 2018) and 17 podiums (matching the record for a fourth time) as well as achieving 5 pole positions. His total of 413 points for the season was a new record, seeing the Briton finish 87 points clear of second-placed Bottas. Hamilton won his seventh drivers’ title in 2020, equalling the record set by Schumacher, in a season heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the shortened seventeen-race season, Hamilton took 11 wins (equalling his previous personal best, but in fewer races) including one in Portugal to break Schumacher’s record of 91 wins. Early on in the 2021 season, Hamilton and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen emerged as title favorites. The pair frequently exchanged the championship lead throughout the season—often sparring (and occasionally coming together) on track—and entered the last race in Abu Dhabi level on points.

In Abu Dhabi, Verstappen overtook Hamilton on the final lap of the race, denying Hamilton his eighth title. During the season, Hamilton became the first driver to surpass 100 pole positions and 100 race wins, respectively. The season finale was marred by controversy over race director Michael Masi’s decision to instruct only the lapped cars separating Verstappen and Hamilton to un-lap themselves under the safety car, which eliminated any gap between the pair and allowed the Dutchman, running newly fitted soft tyres, to enter the final lap immediately behind Hamilton on his worn hard tyres. Four days after the race, the FIA announced that it would conduct an internal investigation into the incident. Masi was subsequently removed from his role as race director, with the FIA World Motor Sport Council report finding that “human error” failed to follow Formula One Sporting Regulations concerning the withdrawal of the safety car, but also that the final standings “are valid, final and cannot now be changed.” Hamilton was partnered by George Russell for 2022, in place of the departing Bottas. The season saw significant changes in technical regulations which sought to utilize ground effect to generate downforce. At the pre-season tests in Bahrain, Mercedes presented its “zero sidepod” car, which was radically different from its competitors. The Mercedes W13 suffered from an extreme porpoise at the beginning of the season, which limited the potential of the car;  At the Saudi Arabian GP, ​​Hamilton deemed the car “undrivable”.  In the first half of the season, Hamilton was narrowly behind Russell in points, despite being involved in the development of the W13, he had to try experimental car arrangements until the British GP. Once his contribution to the development of cars was complete, he could perform better. Hamilton collected more podiums and championship points than Russell in the second half of the season. During the season, Hamilton set records such as most consecutive seasons with at least one podium, most consecutive seasons with at least one round, most races with one constructor, most Q3 appearances, most top 10 finishes, and most checkered flags. Monaco Grand Prix, most podiums at a single track, most points at Monza, and most podiums at the United States Grand Prix. By the end of the season, Hamilton had nine podium finishes, but for the first time in his Formula 1 career, he did not win a race in a season and did not achieve a position. He finished sixth in the Drivers’ Championship, 35 points behind Russell in fourth. But Hamilton managed higher places in the standings and finished more on the podium than Russell.

Business

In 2018, Hamilton launched the clothing line TOMMYXLEWIS at New York Fashion Week with American fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger along with models Winnie Harlow and Hailey Baldwin. Hamilton noted that “[growing up] I remember seeing the iconic Tommy Hilfiger flag” and Hilfiger commented to Hamilton that “Lewis is bold in everything he does… He’s not afraid to take risks. A sophisticated style that speaks to the new generation. from Tommy to the fans.”

In September 2019, Hamilton launched a vegan restaurant called Neat Burger. It is said to be the first international plant-based hamburger chain. In 2020, Neat Burger was crowned Best Vegan Restaurant of the Year at the Deliveroo Restaurant Awards. In August 2020, the Daily Front Row listed Hamilton as one of the high-profile investors who bought the troubled fashion magazine W. In 2021, Neat Burger was voted best vegan restaurant at the Deliveroo Restaurant Awards for the second year running. Siisi Burger was also chosen as the Company of the Year by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Hamilton also became an ambassador for IWC, a luxury watch company owned by Richemont. In 2021, Hamilton toured the world with the PORTL Hologram first in Europe and then made his US debut in Los Angeles in September. In September 2020, Hamilton launched the X44 to compete in the Extreme E all-electric SUV off-road series for the 2021 season. The X44 team finished second in the inaugural Extreme E Championship behind Nico Rosberg’s RXR team. In January 2022, the X44 was awarded the Extreme E-Sustainability Award at its launch. The team won the 2022 championship in the final race of the season, beating disqualified RXR. In August 2022, Hamilton joined the newly formed Denver Broncos ownership of the National Football League.

Lewis Hamilton Relationship

Hamilton has been linked to many girls over the years like Nicki Minaj, Kendall Jenner, Winnie Harlow, Rita Ora, Rihanna, and Russian model Viktoria Odintcova. He was recently linked to model Camila Kendra, but romance rumors were dismissed and the pair insisted they were just friends. In March 2023, he was seen hanging out with Shakira.

Lewis Hamilton Net Worth

In 2015, Hamilton was named Britain’s richest sportsperson, with an estimated personal fortune of £88 million. In 2018, Hamilton’s net worth was reported to be £159 million. In 2020, Hamilton’s fortune was estimated at £224 million, making him the richest British sports star in the history of the Sunday Times Rich List. In 2010, Hamilton, like many other Formula 1 drivers, moved to Monaco and bought a £10 million house. Hamilton also owns an apartment in Manhattan, New York, which he bought for $40 million in 2017, and a property in Colorado, where he has said he will continue to live after retirement. Ahead of the 2015 Monaco Grand Prix weekend, Hamilton signed a contract that will see him stay with Mercedes until the end of the 2018 season, a deal worth more than £100m over three years, making him one of the highest-paid drivers in Formula 1.  A week before the 2018 German GP, ​​Hamilton signed a two-year contract with Mercedes worth up to £40 million a year, making him the highest-paid driver in Formula One history. According to Forbes, Hamilton was one of the highest-paid athletes of the decade and also the highest-paid Formula One driver from 2013 to 2021.

Lewis Hamilton Education

Hamilton attended John Henry Newman School, a voluntary aided Catholic secondary school in Stevenage. In February 2001, he began his studies at Cambridge Arts and Sciences (CATS), a private sixth-form college in Cambridge.

Lewis Hamilton Twitter Account

Then and now. Thanks for the love, Miami — https://t.co/F4zpLD6cuv pic.twitter.com/gqKkb3jIWN

— Lewis Hamilton (@LewisHamilton) May 9, 2023

Lewis Hamilton Instagram Account

 

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Lewis Hamilton Physical Stats

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