Lewis Hamilton starts the season as Formula One’s youngest world champion and aiming to become the first British driver to retain the title.
It promises to be the 24-year-old McLaren driver’s greatest challenge yet with new regulations, a car that has been well off the pace in testing and a host of hungry rivals eager to put him in his place.
Compatriots Jackie Stewart (1969, 1971, 1973), Jim Clark (1963, 1965) and Graham Hill (1962, 1968) were all multiple champions but none managed to rack up two crowns in a row.
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The club of those who did numbers only eight members and is a roll-call of some of the sport’s greatest names—Italian Alberto Ascari, Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio, Australian Jack Brabham, France’s Alain Prost, Brazilian Ayrton Senna, Finland’s Mika Hakkinen, Germany’s Michael Schumacher and Spain’s Fernando Alonso.
Hamilton might have been among them already, had he not lost out in his sensational debut 2007 season by a single point and against the odds to Ferrari’s Finn Kimi Raikkonen.
“If you were a climber and you’ve climbed Everest, then you don’t fear doing it again. It’s something that you know you can do,” said McLaren chairman Ron Dennis.
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“What you have to do is look at different ways of achieving it. The challenges this year, with a new set of regulations, are different to last. And just as a climber varies his route, I think that’s how you have to look at Lewis’s approach.
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