Lewis Hamilton - F1 World Champion 2008

I have been a keen follower of F1 since the days of Stirling Moss, Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart, Alan Jones, Jody Sheckter, Nicki Lauder, Keke Rosberg and the rest of course including our home grown world champions James Hunt, Nigel Mansell and prior to Lewis our last world champion Damon Hill.

Lewis has risen to the highest levels of F1 through his involvement and sponsorship by Mclaren. From Karting, to the lower formulas and onto GP2 he showed immense talent and an eagerness to win each time out.



Under the careful wing of Ron Dennis he has been transformed into a huge talent and at his tender age thankfully will be there for many years to come.

I have to be honest when I say I never looked upon him as a coloured driver only a British talent. However, he has been compared with the great Tiger Woods who both share immense talent in their fields. It has also been suggested he will be the first £billion racing driver as the rewards at the top level these days are immense.

Having narrowly missed the championship in 2007 he came back in 2008 to redress the balance with avengance but had it not been for Glock's dry tyres in wet conditions in Brazil and passing him 15 seconds before the flag the dream would have gone away.



The MP24-23 performed well all year but still Lewis has a problem with the front tyres being the same as in '07. The team must also sharpen their act with bad decision making in and around pit stops. They took control of the race in Brazil and once again nearly lost Lewis the title with bad decisions for the tyre change.

The new Vodaphone Mclaren Mercedes 2009 car will be completely different with its narrow wings, slick tyres and the new KERS system which we can only hope will work for all the cars or the season could be a damp squib.

It will obviously take a time for all the cars to settle down once the season starts and lets hope Mclaren don't take long about it.



We can all only hope the Credit Crunch does not affect the future of the sport and major efforts are in place to reduce costs across the field. The deal between Mclaren and Force India will bring them up the grid and with only a second between first and last every 10th counts on the way.