These previously unseen pictures show the newly crowned Formula One world
champion, Lewis Hamilton, behind the wheel of a car for the first time. The
backdrop is a nondescript test track on the outskirts of Chobham, Surrey, a
world away from the multi-million-pound sponsorship deals and the
head-turning pop-star girlfriend, and long before he had mastered cornering
an F1 car at 150mph.
In 2000, Hamilton was a 15-year-old schoolboy, and the least famous and least
experienced entrant in an annual driving competition held by a motoring
magazine. The other competitors included a former F1 world champion, two
World Rally Car drivers, a stock-car world champion, and a Lotus test driver.
After the event the pictures of the schoolboy were never published. They were
filed away and have only emerged now, offering an intriguing insight into
the makings of the world’s youngest F1 champion.
Not much more than 5ft tall and hardly visible above the steering wheel of the
BMW M coupé, Hamilton may have been just a baby-faced teenager turning up at
Chobham with his dad - but he was an ambitious one. He was already a junior
karting champion, already signed to McLaren’s development programme, and
confident enough to think he could take on professional drivers, even on his
very first time driving a car.
Steve Sutcliffe was one of the journalists watching Hamilton take his first
spin behind the wheel that day. “When he turned up, nobody really noticed,”
he recalls. “Most of the other competitors thought he was just a kid who’d
turned up to watch with his dad, or perhaps someone on work experience who’d
been allowed to watch the real men do their thing.”
The competition was a test of car control, rather than speed, but Hamilton was
already an instinctive racer. “To begin with, Lewis seemed perplexed by what
we called the sideways challenge,” says Sutcliffe. “You could tell he
thought drifting a BMW around a wet steering pad was about as significant as
the kid who’d come eighth in his previous kart race. Like all true racers,
Lewis couldn’t see why you’d want to slide around in a circle when you could
go faster by not sliding around it.”
Hamilton gradually began to master the manoeuvre and was soon drifting,
spinning and sliding around the track. He couldn’t beat his more experienced
rivals, but that didn’t stop him trying. “He didn’t throw a strop as such,
but he wasn’t at all pleased he hadn’t done so well - even though he was 15
and hadn’t driven a car before,” says Sutcliffe. “What none of us will ever
forget is watching him practise for lap after lap, long after all the
superstars had gone home. He was determined not to leave without having
learnt something.”
