While the family's financial struggle was over it put extra pressure on McLaren's teenage protege to meet ever higher expectations. Lewis: 'I just went upstairs to my room and got on with my homework.

It was Ron Dennis who presented Anthony with an offer to financially support his son's career for the forseeable future, with the proviso that Lewis should keep working hard at school. The call was made just three years later and it was the Hamilton household's telephone that rang. He put them in my book and also wrote 'Call me in nine years.'' Dennis, I'm Lewis Hamilton and one day I'd like to race for your team.' I asked him for his autograph and his phone number. Brandishing an autograph book prepared by his father, he approached Ron Dennis, boss of the McLaren Mercedes Formula One team. In 1995, a 10-year-old kart champion, wearing a borrowed suit and shoes, picked up two trophies at a motorsport awards ceremony in London. Soon the Hamiltons - Anthony, Linda, Nic and Lewis - were a fixture at karting events and the boy racer, wearing the familiar yellow helmet chosen by an anxious Anthony to better keep track of his speedy progress in crowded kart fields, began winning races and championships. 'Even though he always told me to be courteous and polite, my focus and determination comes from, and has always been driven by, my dad.'Īnthony Hamilton, his mentor and manager, worked day and night for years (at one time he held three different jobs) to further his son's racing career, which effectively began when eight-year-old Lewis was given a well-used go-kart that cost nearly as much as the family's modest monthly income. 'I only have to think of Nic to feel motivated and put a smile on my face.' His steely ambition and iron resolve come from the head of the family.

He finds the cheerful bravery of his stepbrother, who suffers from cerebral palsy, inspirational. Remaining close to his mother, Lewis also formed a strong bond with his stepmother and credits them both with contributing to the caring, considerate side of his nature. He lived with Carmen until he was 10 then moved in with Anthony, his wife Linda and their three-year-old son Nicolas. His father Anthony, whose parents immigrated from Grenada in the West Indies in the 1950's, and his mother Carmen divorced when Lewis was about two years old. Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton was born into a mixed-race family on 7 January 1985, in Stevenage, a quiet English town north of London.

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