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Lewis Hamilton is beginning to understand that winning motor races is only one part of the job for a modern Formula One (F1) driver. As well as personal appearances there are the advertisements, photo shoots, press interviews, and autograph sessions. At the Goodwood Festival last month a 65,000-strong crowd cheered him in the rain while he stood, like royalty, on the balcony of Goodwood House, and he is preparing for a hero’s welcome at this weekend’s British Grand Prix race at Silverstone.
So how is he coping with being the most famous sportsman in Britain? ‘It’s a bit weird,’ he says. ‘I first noticed it after the Grand Prix in Bahrain. Simple things like going out for dinner, to the cinema or the petrol station are not the same and I get more people coming up to me. I’ve been working for thirteen years and now I’m winning races but it’s a lot more than I expected. The worst thing about it is losing your privacy. I am trying to deal with it at the moment, but I don’t know the best way to do it. I am just trying to keep my head down, keep myself to myself and not do anything silly.’ He claims not really to read the newspaper coverage of himself ‘except to check out the pictures, make sure I still look good’.
With a salary reported to be $40,000 a year (modest compared with that of his teammate, but not bad for a 22-year-old) he has upgraded his ‘off-duty’ car from a Smart Brabus to a rather more luxurious Mercedes GL 4x4 and there is speculation that he is thinking of moving from Hertfordshire to Monaco. Still, he remains relatively careful in his spending. ‘I don’t seem to carry any money in my wallet, I don’t know why. I always have to borrow money from my dad,’ he says. ‘I don’t like to waste money. For instance the last money I spent was on a remote-control car so I could play with my brother and that was about $200, so even that wasn’t so expensive.’
His success and possibly the fact that he is the first black F1 driver has created a group of celebrity admirers such as Pharrell Williams, the rapper and producer. ‘That’s got to be one of the coolest things, getting to meet people like him,’ says Hamilton. ‘He was a guest of mine for the weekend at the US Grand Prix and I had dinner with him on the Saturday night. I met Beyonce recently, too. She’s fantastic, she invited me to her concert at Wembley, phenomenal.’
If all these things are not to fade, however, Hamilton will have to continue to dominate on the racetrack. Last week Sir Jackie Stewart, the three-time F1 champion, warned against relaxing too much: ‘Three months ago I was asked if Lewis could win the championship and I said that it was possible but unlikely. Now I say it’s possible but it’s more likely. The one thing that all up-and-coming stars have in common is potential. Whether they deliver over the long term is what counts and that’s still to be proven.’
Ever since he famously approached Ron Dennis, head of the McLaren team, as a nine-year-old kart racer and told him he would one day race for him, Hamilton has been raised through the team’s system. In many ways he is the embodiment of a new era in racing: Hamilton says that he rarely drinks and would rather go out for dinner than hit a nightclub.
The intensity of his training is astonishing. High-tech computer read-outs enable the driver and engineers to reduce lap times by fractions of a second, while racing simulators and 3-D virtual reality cars mean drivers can know a circuit off by heart without having driven it for real.
The thoroughness of the training reveals itself not only in Hamilton’s spectacular start to his first season, but also in his quiet confidence. ‘Every racing driver has a great deal of self-belief,’ he says, adding that he is not bothered by the Formula One circus. ‘The big transition is from karts to single-seaters. That’s the biggest step up.’

On the move: Lewis Hamilton

What, according to the writer, has Hamilton started to realize?

What does Hamilton find surprising?

What has Hamilton done with some of his money?

How does Hamilton feel about meeting famous people?

What does Jackie Stewart say about Hamilton?

When he first met the McLaren boss, Hamilton said

By using the training equipment,

What effect has his training had on Hamilton?