LEWIS HAMILTON, 2008 CHAMPION

After narrowly missing out on the world championship in his debut season in 2007, Britain’s Lewis Hamilton wins the title in dramatic circumstances the following year

'; ?> “I’m going to drive for you one day.” That’s what 10-year-old karting ace Lewis Hamilton tells McLaren Group Executive Chairman Ron Dennis, having sought him out at the Autosport Awards in December 1995 (the year in which the partnership between Mobil 1 and McLaren begins).

Hamilton has already won the British Cadet Kart Championship, and in 1998 he joins the McLaren Mercedes Young Driver Support Program. He continues up the ranks through Intercontinental A, Formula A and Formula Super A, winning the European Championship in 2000.

The 2001 Formula Renault UK Winter Series provides Hamilton with his first experience of car racing. By the 2003 season, he is utterly dominant, winning ten races to his nearest rival’s two.

Hamilton graduates to the hotly contested Formula 3 Euro Series for 2004, and the following year takes the drivers’ title with 15 wins out of 20 races.

Winning the GP2 Series – a feeder series for F1 – in 2006, Hamilton shows he is ready to make good on his promise all those years ago, and at the Australian GP in 2007 he makes his Formula 1™ debut for Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, finishing on the podium in his first race.

That season, he equals Jim Clark's British record of nine consecutive podium finishes and becomes the youngest driver ever to lead the world championship.

Hamilton is on top going into the decisive final race, but there is no fairytale ending; a gearbox problem sees him lose out to Kimi Raikkonen by just a single point.

In 2008, however, Hamilton shrugs off the disappointment to win the title in dramatic fashion. A series of victories means he leads Ferrari’s Felipe Massa by seven points going into the last race of the season, the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Fifth place would guarantee the championship, but as Massa takes the checkered flag, Hamilton lays sixth and a jubilant crowd thinks that Massa has won the title on home soil.

But with one corner remaining, Hamilton’s pressure on Timo Glock pays off. The German runs wide, handing the Briton the extra point he needs to complete the rapid rise to from rookie to world champion in just two seasons.

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