The Easy Sports » Brazilian Grand Prix http://theeasysports.com Sat, 04 Sep 2010 12:50:45 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Lewis Hamilton – 2008 F1 World Champion http://theeasysports.com/top-players/lewis-hamilton-2008-f1-world-champion http://theeasysports.com/top-players/lewis-hamilton-2008-f1-world-champion#comments Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:16:28 +0000 admin http://theeasysports.com/?p=5 3611855200_28d38a8591 Lewis Hamilton - 2008 F1 World Champion
from flickr

This year’s Brazilian Grand Prix had race lovers on the edges of their seats until the very end, and the final race of the 2008 Formula One series seemed for a time to be Felipe Massa’s. However, an eleventh hour effort by Lewis Hamilton led in his becoming the world’s first black Formula One champion.
Lewis Hamilton lovers were elated when he secured first place at the China Grand Prix in Shanghai. He had been prefigured by many Formula One watchers as the favourite. Hamilton needed that win to be in the running for World Champion heading into the Brazilian Grand Prix.
His two year career with Formula One has been fraught with high hopes and subsequent disappointments. His tie-up with the sport and team McLaren actually began long before his induction to Formula One. Lewis Hamilton started as among the first drivers to receive instruction in the Young Driver Support Programme. The school was started in 1998 as a sharing deed between McLaren and Mercedes-Benz. Hamilton was just 13 at the time.


His rookie season looked bright at the start. He had nine podium finishes in a row and four first-place ends. It wasn’t quite sufficient in the end though. The 2007 Grand Prix season saw Lewis Hamilton take the second best position to World Champion Kimi Raikkonen. Still, it was an astonishing finish for the British rookie.
His fans waited eagerly to see if he could step it up in 2008. He took five first-places in the season. He narrowly missed a sixth in Belgium. Hamilton was at first declared the winner, only to have his title stripped from him. He lost his rating at the Belgian Grand Prix due to an illegal manoeuvre. He cut a chicane late in the race. The act got him demoted to third place.
He also narrowly escaped a win in Japan in October. Lewis Hamilton had been the favorite racer. Instead he managed to earn a unsatisfying 12th place, thanks to a penalty. His loss in Japan narrowed the gap to a small margin between him and rival Felipe Massa.
It was Massa who accelerated to a first place finish at the Brazilian Grand Prix, the season’s final race. It seemed at first that Massa, who also had an impressive season, would take the World Championship according to many favourite blogs
Luckily for Lewis Hamilton he was able to catch the fifth place drive on the last lap. It was just sufficient to eject Massa. He beat Massa by a mere one point.
Lewis Hamilton set more than driving records this season. He isn’t just Formula One’s first black champion. The 23-year-old will go down in history as the youngest driver to win the series.

]]> http://theeasysports.com/top-players/lewis-hamilton-2008-f1-world-champion/feed 0