A race to the top - Spotlight Online

LEWIS HAMILTON
Corbis
SPORT
The man to beat:
Lewis Hamilton
is the defending
world champion
of Formula One
Always racing:
Lewis today, in
his Formula One
car, and as the
boy karting
champion with
very big dreams
A race to
What it takes
Driving style: Drivers must be keen to take risks that will put them
ahead of other drivers. Lewis Hamilton often drives close to the racetrack’s outside wall, which is exciting to watch, but also very dangerous. He’s good at braking later than other drivers when entering a
curve, which can give him a strategic advantage.
McLaren
Mechanics: Drivers must listen to their car’s engineers, and understand enough about the car to communicate with them. These fantastic machines have more than 20 buttons just on the steering wheel.
Tyres make a big difference in Formula One, and rules about them
are always a source of controversy.
Von Null auf Hundert in zwei Jahren: Lewis Hamilton ist der jüngste Formel-1-Weltmeister in der
Geschichte des Sports. MAJA SIROLA berichtet über seinen Weg zur Poleposition.
young man stands in the pit lane at Albert Park in
Melbourne, a yellow helmet in his hand. It’s a
perfect late-summer day, with the fast circuit of
the Australian Grand Prix to look forward to. The
young man is eager to climb into his car, but
stops to share a laugh with the other drivers. He’s got a
reason to smile. He’s Lewis Hamilton, at 24 the youngest
world champion ever of Formula One — the most elite form
of automobile racing — and the sport’s first black driver.
The year 2009 marks Formula One’s 60th anniversary.
Australia is usually the first location of the season’s 17 races,
with the others taking place in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and South America. Normally, ten teams, each with
two drivers and sponsors like Ferrari, BMW and Vodafone
McLaren Mercedes, race vehicles that cost millions to build.
They drive at speeds of up to 360 km/h in front of 55 million television viewers. It’s a stressful job, but for now, the
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drivers are relaxed. The season’s just beginning. Even a
champion like Lewis can afford to take it easy.
Two years ago, things were different: Lewis stood in the
very same place, facing his first Formula One race. Back
then, though, he was an unknown young man from Stevenage near London, driving for the Vodafone McLaren
Mercedes team. Without his father, Anthony Hamilton, who
recognized Lewis’s talent early and dedicated his life to
his son’s dream of becoming a racing champion, Lewis
might not be here at all.
“My principles are to listen to my dad, cherish my family, compete hard and never give up,” Lewis writes in his
autobiography, Lewis Hamilton: My Story. He adds, “My
approach to things is: do not waver; do not give up. My dad
reminds me of that nearly every single day, and I am always
aware of how much work we have put in to get where we
are today.”
4/09
Exercise: Drivers need lots of energy: driving a Formula One race is often compared to running a marathon. A typical day’s training for
Lewis Hamilton includes swimming two kilometres, cycling 80 kilometres and spending two hours at the fitness studio. A driver needs
to develop strong neck muscles to support his head and helmet when
braking or turning at extreme speeds.
Training: Simulators prepare the drivers for races. The driver sits in a
full-size Formula One car in front of a large screen that shows the exact racetrack for which the driver is training. The car, which has no
wheels or engine, is connected to a hydraulic system that moves according to how the driver uses the steering and pedals.
When Lewis became the 2008 world champion, no one
was prouder than his dad. Anthony Hamilton discovered his
son’s talent and wanted him to pursue it. It was a love of
speed he’d seen in Lewis’s grandfather, who used to race his
motorbike around the Caribbean island of Grenada. It’s easy
to speculate that Lewis’s driving talent is in his genes; but
hard work and luck have played important roles, too.
For the Hamilton family, it all began when Anthony, a
black railway worker, married a white factory worker
named Carmen. The mixed-race marriage caused some talk
around the council estate where they lived. It was into this
working-class background that Lewis Carl Hamilton was
born on 7 January 1985. Anthony had very high hopes for
his first-born, who is named after the African American
Olympian Carl Lewis.
4/09
A few years later, his parents split up. Lewis stayed with
his mother, but he still spent lots of time with his dad, who
was a big fan of motor sports. Lewis loved playing with
radio-controlled cars, perhaps the first sign of his passion
for racing. When Lewis was five, his father noticed how
well he manoeuvred a dodgem at an amusement arcade.
So Anthony started to take Lewis karting. The boy loved
it, and Anthony supported his son’s hobby with every extra penny he could earn.
t
McLaren
the top
amusement arcade
[ə'mju:zmənt ɑ:"ked]
approach [ə'prəυtʃ]
brake [brek]
button ['bÃtən]
champion ['tʃ{mpjən]
cherish sth. ['tʃerʃ]
circuit ['s«:kt]
compete [kəm'pi:t]
controversy ['kɒntrəv«:si]
council estate ['kaυnsəl "stet] UK
dedicate sth. to sth. ['dedket tə]
dodgem ['dɒdZəm] UK
eager: be ~ ['i:gə]
helmet ['helmt]
karting ['kɑ:tŋ]
manoeuvre sth. [mə'nu:və]
pit lane ['pt len]
pursue sth. [pə'sju:]
radio-controlled ['rediəυ kən"trəυld]
screen [skri:n]
split up ["splt 'Ãp]
steering wheel ['stərŋ "wi:əl]
tyre ['taə]
vehicle ['vi:kəl]
waver ['wevə]
A
C L O S E R
überdachte
Vergnügungsmeile
Einstellung
bremsen
Knopf, Schalter
Sieger(in)
etw. wertschätzen
Rundkurs
gegen die Konkurrenz
kämpfen
Auseinandersetzung
Siedlung mit Sozialwohnungen
etw. einer Sache widmen
Autoscooter
es kaum erwarten können
Helm
Gokartfahren
etw. manövrieren/lenken
Boxengasse
etw. verfolgen
ferngesteuert
Bildschirm
sich trennen
Lenkrad
Reifen
Fahrzeug
nachlassen
L O O K
Carl Lewis, born on 1 July 1961 in Birmingham, Alabama, is an
African American star of athletics. He won 10 Olympic medals in
the 1980s and 90s, nine of which were gold. He retired from sports
in 1996.
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