Lewis Hamilton: My Story. Lewis Hamilton

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СКАЧАТЬ I might be a Formula One racing driver, but that does not make me any different. As far as I am concerned we are all on the same level. I want to take time out of my schedule to sign an autograph if it is going to make someone’s day. Making people happy is what makes me happy.

      I do not believe in doing anything wrong to succeed. Never. In my family we are all competitive and nobody likes to lose. I would say my dad’s the worst. He taught me how to win and lose but even he would admit that losing is not a nice experience to deal with – it does make your desire to succeed even stronger, though I can see how difficult he finds it sometimes. It shows in his face, of course, even after a game of pool at home. And I can see it sometimes after races. We are alike, too, in that we stick to the same way of doing things. As I said earlier, we believe in the basics – honesty, loyalty and trust – and that is why we all found the politics in Formula One this year so hard to handle. As I said at the time, politics sucks. Everyone knows about the controversy with Ferrari and, well, the last thing any of us wanted was to be landed in something like that in the middle of my rookie season.

      I suppose it is to do with honesty that I want to do things properly…in an open way. I compete to win, but I always do my best and try to do things the right way. Maybe I am sometimes very highly charged and very determined, but I would never ever cheat to win. Never at all. That is why we all felt so much emotion when there were so many allegations being made against the team, against Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, this year. It was wrong. I never once believed any of the rumours or stories and I had complete belief in Ron Dennis and the team and the values they stand by.

      In my own way, the only thing to do was to rise above it all, concentrate on the racing, continue to do my best and, most important of all, keep a smile on my face which, with everything kicking off, had been difficult. All my lessons in life, my dad’s and my family’s advice and encouragement and examples of how to live and how to behave, have stood me in good stead. When you have been through some of the stuff I went through as a kid, and when you have seen life through a really normal pair of eyes in Stevenage, in London, in Grenada and other places – all of that on top of my racing career gave me the right kind of grounding to cope with it. So I just did my thing.

      Being able to control yourself, redeem yourself, is important. When I play computer games with Nic I always try my best to beat him. I never let him win. I never let anyone win at anything, at home or anywhere. I am always the same. I am just that competitive. I have to win at everything, but I would never cheat. I just love knowing that I won fair and square or that I tried my best.

      Mental strength is so important. On the surface, it may look like I am pretty cool most of the time, but underneath I am a very emotional person. That is why these things matter. I love being at home with my family and the equilibrium that gives me. We are all emotional people in my family – that is part of our nature – but in this business, in Formula One, you have to be a bit cold and a bit selfish. I suppose we are all a bit selfish in our own lives and that comes out sometimes in all of us. But I find I can balance it all if I am around my family.

      Racing takes up most of my weekends, so any weekends I do have off are so important and valuable to me, and, going back to square one, returning to my own home and occasionally going to my parents’ house, the power station – that is important, too. It is where I do all my mental preparation and feel good. My strength is in the family, wherever we all are, as long as we are together.

      There are loads of places where you can get mental strength and energy, but again there are loads of places you can lose energy! For me, the problems are energy-wasters. And it is my dad’s job to make sure that he helps me with that – he absorbs all of the negative energy when it happens. It is too easy to be sucked into things and just find you are drained by it all.

      This whole thing about changing negative energy into positive energy is not rocket science. It is just about trying to look on the positive side and turn this or that mistake, or whatever, into something positive. I cannot do it with everything. Sometimes it is just too big to put through my small generator. So, that is when my dad absorbs it; or I put it onto someone else – I might call my mum, or a best friend, telling him about the problem – and then it’s their problem! As long as I keep the same set of principles, I will be fine.

      I have been racing since I was eight years old and I have learned what works for me. I always try to remember to appreciate the opportunity I’ve been given and I always give 100 per cent. I always say, ‘Keep your family as close as possible.’ These are the things I believe in and they have done me well.

      In my career, it is the same. McLaren and Mercedes-Benz have been incredibly loyal to us and, hopefully, we will be loyal to them and I’ll see out most of my career with them. For me, loyalty matters. In terms of friendship, it means being someone others can trust. And that works both ways. I am the sort of person who tells it all and can be quite blunt. Sometimes I do not realize that I may have affected someone, for worse or better, but it is just me being honest.

      I know I am a lucky person. I have a good life, I have been given a talent and I have enjoyed myself very much, for most of the time, in my twenty-two years. It is never easy though. No way. Not for me, not for my dad and not for my family. We have had some extremely hard times and some extremely good times. But – and I think this is the most important thing – we have learned from them all.

       CHAPTER

       3

       CONFIDENCE

      ‘My racing career may not have started properly until I was eight, but it had in fact been part of my life much earlier. As a teenager, sadly my enthusiasm was not shared by all and my career nearly ended before it had started because of a case of mistaken identity by my school.’

      MY START IN LIFE WAS PRETTY NORMAL. I was born at the Lister Hospital in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, on 7 January 1985. I was named Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton. My dad’s middle name is Carl and Nic also has Carl as a middle name. The name Lewis was just a name that my parents liked at the time. The name Davidson is taken from my granddad.

      Stevenage was one of the ‘new towns’ built after the Second World War and is a typical commuter town with both local and international business facilities and good rail and road links to London, in the south, and to the north of England. Thousands of people travel from Stevenage to London and back every day on the train and my dad was one of them. He worked for British Rail while my mum worked in the local council offices. My mum and dad lived in a council house in Peartree Way, on the Shephall Estate, in Stevenage. My mum had two daughters Samantha and Nicola – from a previous relationship before she met my dad. Sammy and Nicky were about two and three when my dad came into their lives. It was not a luxurious or a privileged neighbourhood, but it was also not as bad as some.

      My first school was just down the end of our road, the Peartree Spring Nursery School. My second primary school, Peartree Infant and Junior School, was a five-minute walk around the corner. For my secondary school I chose the John Henry Newman School, a Roman Catholic secondary, before completing my education at the Cambridge Arts and Sciences College. I have to say it was not as straightforward as it sounds, and there were a few ups and downs along the way. My interest in karting and motor racing, which took me away a lot at weekends as I grew older, did not always fit in with the strict thinking of some people. At school, I used to keep my interest in racing to myself.

      My racing career may not have started properly until I was eight, but it had in fact been part of my life much earlier. As a teenager, sadly my enthusiasm was not СКАЧАТЬ