Lewis Hamilton

Published to coincide with start of the hotly-anticipated 2008 season, this book is a widely acclaimed and hugely successful hardback published at the climax of the 2007 World Championship. It has considerable brand new material added to the paperback edition. Veteran F1 journalist Mark Hughes unearths the true foundations that have enabled a personable and down-to-earth 22-year-old from a sleepy village in Hertfordshire to achieve the most successful start to a career the sport has ever seen.This book helps you discover how it all began, from the day Hamilton's father bought a hyperactive six-year-old a go-kart, to the British, European and World karting titles that followed. You can learn how at a motorsport awards ceremony in 1995, a plucky 10-year-old Hamilton asked Ron Dennis (the principal of McLaren F1 Racing) of the opportunity to race for his team in the future and how in 1998, at 13-years-old, McLaren duly signed him in a long-term agreement that made him the youngest driver in history with an F1 contract.Hughes takes us through the intervening years, right up to the explosive 2007 Formula one season when he became not only the first black driver ever to race an F1 car, but the first driver of any colour to stand on the podium at the end of their first nine races. As Sir Jackie Stewart said, 'Lewis is a man of the people and the people will love him for it.' Brand new material in this paperback edition includes: interviews with former F1 drivers who proffer their opinion on his qualities, where he needs to make improvements, where he stacks-up against the greats, and what his ultimate potential is; an insider view of testing during close season; and, a preview of the 2008 season and a detailed run-down of his prospects against the new team line-ups, including his new team-mate at McLaren.

MARK HUGHES is recognised as one of Formula One's top journalists, and his reports and columns for Autosport magazine have won him wide acclaim. ITV and Radio 5 Live regularly benefit from his expertise. He has written a number of books on F1, one of which won the 2005 Illustrated Sports Book of the Year. 'He's our own beatnik Kerouac,' say Motor Sport magazine, 'taking the best bits from the journalistic greats and raising the bar for everyone.'