Lewis Hamilton’s Legacy in Formula One:
Born on January 7, 1985, in Stevenage, England, Lewis Hamilton is regarded by many as one of the greatest Formula One (F1) Grand Prix drivers of all time. He and Michael Schumacher are tied for the most race victories in Formula One history, both with seven Drivers' Championship crowns. Hamilton won the 2008 Formula One World Drivers' Championship, becoming him the first Black driver to do so.
Lewis Hamilton was born in the town of Stevenage, some 30 miles (48 km) north of London. He took his first steps into competitive racing at the age of eight. By the time he was ten, he had already won the British Kart Championship. Three years later, he was selected for the McLaren and Mercedes-Benz Young Driver Support Program, which provided him all the training and resources he needed to improve. Hamilton won the European and World Karting Championships in 1998 and 2000, making him the youngest driver to ever hold the top rank in the sport.
After switching to auto racing, he dominated the competition with 10 of 15 victories, winning the British Formula Renault championship in 2003. The next year, he competed in the Formula Three Euro Series, winning the title in 2005. Lewis Hamilton won the championship in his first season of racing in the Grand Prix 2 (GP2) series, which was established in 2006 to prepare drivers for Formula One.
Hamilton became a member of the McLaren Formula One team in 2007. After placing second in his debut season, he was just one point behind Kimi Räikkönen, the winner of the World Drivers’ Championship. With four race wins that year, he tied Jacques Villeneuve’s record for the most Formula One victories in a rookie season.
In 2008, at the age of 23, Lewis Hamilton won his first Drivers’ Championship after winning five races, just one point ahead of Felipe Massa. When Sebastian Vettel won his first title in 2010, he broke the record of being the youngest driver to win the championship at the time.
Throughout the following seasons with McLaren, Lewis Hamilton remained one of the top drivers on the Formula One grid. He won three races in 2010, four in 2012, and two in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012. In September 2012, Hamilton courageously made the decision to leave McLaren and join the Mercedes-Benz Formula One team. He only won one race during his challenging rookie season with Mercedes in 2013. But for the fifth consecutive year, he earned enough points to finish among the top five drivers in the championship.
During the 2014 Formula One season, Lewis Hamilton won a career-high 11 races and his second Drivers’ Championship. In 2015, he showed his continued momentum by winning his third title with one month left in the season. In both years, Hamilton and his teammate Nico Rosberg helped Mercedes win the Constructors’ Championship.
In 2016, Rosberg won both the Drivers’ Championship and the championship after defeating Lewis Hamilton, who finished in second place. Hamilton bounced back nicely in 2017, winning nine races and taking home his fourth Drivers’ Championship. He won another championship in 2018, bringing his total to five and tying the record held by Juan Manuel Fangio for the second-most F1 titles ever.
With his sixth Drivers’ Championship in 2019, Lewis Hamilton trailed only Michael Schumacher by one championship. He not only tied Schumacher’s record with his seventh title in 2020, but he also surpassed Schumacher’s record for the most career Formula One race victories (91).
In the same year, Lewis Hamilton formed the Hamilton Commission in partnership with the Royal Academy of Engineering to identify the barriers Black people face in the British motorsport industry. The commission released a report in 2021 with recommendations for broadening diversity in engineering and motorsport. Hamilton also founded the Mission 44 Foundation to accomplish these goals. Near the end of the 2023 season, he commented, “We just took a team photo, and I still look at it and think, ‘Man, we still have a lot of work to do,'” showing his dissatisfaction with the lack of progress.
Lewis Hamilton’s 100th race victory occurred at the 2021 Russian Grand Prix. He fought Max Verstappen for the Drivers’ Championship that year in an exciting season that concluded in the final race. Because of a controversial decision made by race officials that ultimately went against Hamilton, Verstappen won the race and the title. After missing out on a record-breaking eighth championship, Hamilton later admitted that he had considered quitting racing.
Despite finishing on the podium nine times in 2022, Lewis Hamilton did not win a race for the first time in his Formula One career. At the end of the season, he finished sixth in the Drivers’ Championship, which was his worst result to date. In 2023, he bounced back to finish third overall, but he lost once more. During these two seasons, Mercedes suffered under the new regulations, and Hamilton’s teammate George Russell claimed the team’s only race victory.
In August of 2023, Lewis Hamilton signed a two-year contract extension, despite rumors that he will depart Mercedes during the season. However, Hamilton announced in February 2024 that he would exercise a contract option to leave Mercedes after the 2024 season and sign with Ferrari in 2025. His first race since 2021 was the British Grand Prix, which he won in July 2024. He won the Belgian Grand Prix three weeks later, marking his 105th Formula One triumph to date. At the end of the 2024 season, he finished seventh in the Drivers’ Championship, one position behind teammate Russell.
Hamilton won the sprint race on the second weekend of the 2025 season before the Chinese Grand Prix. After placing sixth in the main race, he and teammate Charles Leclerc were disqualified for a technical violation.
The season was challenging since Hamilton struggled with a car that didn’t perform up to par. In 2025, Hamilton did not finish on the podium for the first time in his Formula One career. In November, Hamilton said, “It’s been a nightmare,” reflecting on the season. He finished sixth in the Drivers’ Championship, 86 points behind Leclerc, who finished in fifth place.
Hamilton has appeared in multiple seasons of the Netflix series Drive to Survive (2019–), which is largely credited with boosting Formula One’s appeal, especially in the United States. He also voiced characters in the Pixar animated movies Cars 2 and Cars 3, which were released in 2011 and 2017, respectively.
The 2025 feature film F1, which starred Brad Pitt as a retired driver recruited to return to Formula One, was also produced by Hamilton. Hamilton worked extensively with producers and actors to ensure that the racing scenes looked authentic. After being made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2009, he was knighted in 2021.