Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton (born January 7, 1985, Stevenage, England) is one of the most successful Formula One (F1) Grand Prix racing drivers of all time. He owns the F1 record for career race victories (106) and is tied with Michael Schumacher for the most drivers’ championships (seven). In 2008 he became the first Black driver to win the F1 world drivers’ championship.

From karting championships to a GP2 title

Hamilton was born in Stevenage, England, a town about 30 miles (48 km) north of London. He began his racing career when he was eight years old. He won the British Kart Championship when he was 10. Three years later Hamilton was signed to the McLaren and Mercedes-Benz Young Driver Support Programme, where he was given the support and backing he needed to train and develop his skills. From 1998 to 2000 he won European and world karting championships, and at age 15 he became the youngest-ever driver to be ranked number one in the sport.

Hamilton progressed to auto racing, and in 2003 he captured the British Formula Renault race series championship by winning 10 of the 15 races he entered. The following year he competed in the Formula Three Euroseries championship. He won the championship in 2005, and in 2006 he joined a team competing in GP2 (Grand Prix 2)—a race series designed to help drivers prepare for F1—and won the GP2 title in his one season in the series.

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F1 debut with McLaren and first F1 championship

Hamilton joined the McLaren F1 team in 2007. In his rookie season he came in second in the world drivers’ championship, only one point behind the winner, Kimi Räikkönen. His four race victories that year tied Jacques Villeneuve’s F1 record for most wins in a rookie season.

In 2008, at the age of 23, Hamilton won five races to secure the drivers’ championship. He finished just one point ahead of Felipe Massa. Hamilton was the youngest person to win the drivers’ championship until Sebastian Vettel won his first title in 2010.

In subsequent seasons with McLaren, Hamilton continued to be one of the top drivers on the F1 circuit, winning two races in 2009, three in 2010, three in 2011, and four in 2012. In September 2012 Hamilton decided to leave McLaren to join the Mercedes-Benz F1 team. He had some difficulty adjusting in his first season with Mercedes, winning just one race in 2013, but Hamilton nevertheless managed to rack up enough points to finish in the top five of the drivers’ championship standings for the seventh consecutive season.

Domination at Mercedes

Hamilton dominated the F1 season in 2014, winning a career-high 11 races to capture his second drivers’ championship. He was just as dominant in 2015, when he won his third drivers’ championship one month before the season ended. In both seasons Hamilton’s performance, combined with that of teammate Nico Rosberg, enabled Mercedes to win the F1 constructor’s championship.

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Rosberg and Mercedes took their respective titles in 2016, with Hamilton finishing second in the drivers’ standings behind his teammate. The following year Hamilton won nine races en route to his fourth drivers’ championship. He won another drivers’ championship in 2018, bringing his career tally to five and tying Juan Manuel Fangio for the second highest championship total in F1 history.

In 2019 Hamilton claimed his sixth drivers’ championship, placing him one title behind Michael Schumacher. Hamilton tied Schumacher’s mark with his seventh championship in 2020, and he also broke Schumacher’s record for most career F1 race victories (91).

The Hamilton Commission

In 2020 Hamilton launched a commission, in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Engineering, to identify the challenges faced by Black people in the British motorsport industry. The Hamilton Commission, as it came to be called, released a report in 2021 with its recommendations on how to make engineering as a profession more inclusive and to encourage more diversity in motorsport. Hamilton also founded the Mission 44 foundation to further these goals. At the end of the 2023 season, he expressed frustration at not seeing more progress: “We just did a team photo and I still look and I’m like, ‘Damn, we still have so much work to do,’” he said. A diversity and inclusion charter, agreed to by all F1 teams in 2024, was one outcome of the commission’s 2021 report.

Controversy in 2021 and a Mercedes slump

Hamilton’s 100th race win came at the 2021 Russian Grand Prix. In 2021 he battled Max Verstappen for the drivers’ championship, which was not decided until the season’s final grand prix; a controversial decision by race officials put Hamilton at a disadvantage, and Verstappen went on to win the race and the championship. Denied a record-setting eighth drivers’ championship, Hamilton said several years later that he had considered retiring.

Hamilton failed to win a race in 2022—the first season during his F1 career that he did not win, though he scored nine podiums. He was sixth in the drivers’ championship, his worst result ever. In 2023 he bounced back to finish third in the drivers’ standings, though he again did not win a race. During this two-year period Mercedes was in a performance slump as it grappled with new regulations; George Russell, Hamilton’s teammate, scored the team’s only race victory.

During the 2023 season, rumors circulated about the possibility of Hamilton leaving Mercedes, but he signed a two-year contract extension in August 2023. In February 2024, however, Hamilton announced that he would exercise an exit clause in his contract and leave Mercedes after the 2024 season to drive for Ferrari in 2025. He won the British Grand Prix in July 2024, his first race victory since 2021, and three weeks later he won the Belgian Grand Prix, his 105th career F1 victory. He finished the 2024 season seventh in the drivers’ standings, one position behind his teammate, Russell.

Racing for Ferrari

Hamilton made his first, highly publicized visit to Ferrari’s F1 facilities in Maranello, Italy, in January 2025. After a 10th-place finish in the first race of the 2025 season, he won the sprint race preceding the Chinese Grand Prix the following weekend. He went on to finish sixth in the grand prix, but he and his teammate, Charles Leclerc, were later disqualified for a technical infringement. That set the tone for a season during which Hamilton struggled with a car that underperformed expectations, and he scored no podium finishes in 2025, the first time that had happened in his F1 career. “It’s a nightmare,” Hamilton said of his season in November. He finished sixth in the drivers’ championship, 86 points behind Leclerc in fifth.

The 2026 season brought a comprehensive overhaul to car regulations, which Hamilton labeled “ridiculously complex” during preseason testing while he also expressed enthusiasm for the new cars. He began the season with a fourth-place finish and then was third in the Chinese Grand Prix, his first grand prix podium finish for Ferrari. A few races later, Hamilton began a run of podiums that culminated with his first grand prix victory for Ferrari, scored at Barcelona.

Film and television work and honors

Hamilton has been heavily featured on several seasons of the Netflix series Drive to Survive (2011– ), which has been credited with raising F1’s profile, especially in the United States. He voiced a character in the Pixar animated films Cars 2 (2011) and Cars 3 (2017). In addition, Hamilton was a producer on the feature film F1 (2025), about a retired driver (played by Brad Pitt) who is recruited to compete for F1 again. He also consulted with the filmmakers and actors to ensure the realism of the movie’s racing scenes.

Hamilton was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2009. He was knighted in 2021.