Lewis Hamilton celebrates his 36th birthday today!

Early years at McLaren

After his championship in the then GP2, Hamilton moved to McLaren. In his rookie season, he was very strong. In his first race, he immediately took third place and it took until the tenth race that season until he missed out on the podium. In the end, he came second behind Kimi Raikkonen, partly due to an unfortunate crash in China.

However, the following year was Hamilton's year and in 2008 he won his first world championship. He did so by overtaking Timo Glock in the last corner in Brazil to take away the championship from Felipe Massa. In the following years, it was mainly fourth and fifth places in the championship for Hamilton, until he made the switch to the big Mercedes.

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by GPblog.com (@gpblog_com)

Switch to Mercedes turns out to be a golden move

In 2013 it still seemed like a strange step, since McLaren was known as a top team. From 2014, however, it became increasingly clear why the Brit had chosen the German team. With the advent of the hybrid era, F1 also entered an era of Mercedes domination. Hamilton proved to be the stronger driver alongside Nico Rosberg and won his second and third titles in 2014 and 2015.

In 2016 the tensions within Mercedes were so high that they came together on track in the fifth race of the season. Both were out of the race and Max Verstappen won. Also in this season, a rare retirement for Hamilton was the deciding factor in the championship. His engine blew in Malaysia allowed Rosberg to win the championship.

Will we see Hamilton at Mercedes this season?

However, since the retirement of Rosberg, no one has been able to match the strong Hamilton and this year the Brit won his fourth consecutive world title. Hamilton does not yet have a contract for 2021 with Mercedes.