Driving an F1 car involves skills that most ordinary people find difficult to comprehend. After braking at the very latest point possible, the driver is balancing on the edge of adhesion at all times during cornering, in an exercise that could perhaps be likened to walking a tightrope at 100mph down a steep hill around a corner in high wind.

Even if I was better than somebody else. Just juggling all these emotions that you're feeling, plus I struggled at school. I didn't find out until I was 16 that I was dyslexic. Just trying to fight against racism in your closed environment wasn’t enough anymore. It was about raising your voice and changing the tonality as well, to make himself heard, to make racism a topic nobody could ignore any more, even if it polarises or it’s controversial. It’s just the right thing to do.” You shouldn’t be frightened to speak your mind. And what you see with Lewis is a young man, a son, who has a heart, who has feelings, who cares for other people.

Whitmarsh says: “He was very cosseted at McLaren, very controlled by two individuals he wanted to divorce himself from [his father and Dennis]. They had contributed to his growth but then ultimately limited his growth. I think he had the belief that he had to become his own man, and he had to be able to survive and grow further without those two dominant characters. He had the ability to stay out of trouble. He was always there at the end with his relentlessness and never-say-die attitude," he adds. Instead, Hamilton went out ahead and refused repeated requests over the radio to let Alonso through. This put Alonso at a disadvantage in the fight for pole. Alonso worked out what was going on and made sure he came into the pits first before their final laps. Hamilton’s family were neither wealthy, nor white. His grandparents came to the UK from the Caribbean island of Grenada in the 1950s. Anthony grew up in west London, married a white woman, Carmen, and they had Lewis in January 1985, but spilt up when he was two. I asked him after how he knew it was going to work, and he said, 'I don't know, it just happens'. That's something you can't teach." Hamilton drove for the late Martin Hines's Zip Young Guns Karting Team

The British newspapers were not impressed, and there followed a series of pieces criticising Hamilton’s behaviour. “Snap prat” was the headline in the Sun. Aged 10, Hamilton became the youngest ever winner of the British cadet kart championship. That year, in 1995, he attended the Autosport Awards, the motorsport industry’s end-of-season shindig. He walked up to Ron Dennis, the boss of McLaren, introduced himself and said: “One day, I want to be racing your cars.” You lose a lot of grip when you are following - especially with these modern F1 cars - but this type of driver knows how to compensate by balancing with speed and brakes. In my younger days, when I hadn't had a lot of success, maybe in the McLaren days, maybe it would have been a lot more attractive. Wallace wrote that Hamilton’s “activism has moved the world”, adding: “Lewis’s mental preparation, his aura, his ability to capitalise on every opportunity to use his platform to drive out racism are more than just a model for race-car drivers and other athletes - he’s an inspiration for everyone."Certainly he was well prepared, though no one was prepared for the astonishing ease with which the precocious youngster stormed through the 2007 season. Consistently out-performing his celebrated team mate Fernando Alonso (who had won the first of his two driving titles, with Renault, when he was just 24), Lewis Hamilton barged onto the podium a dozen times, won four races, led the championship for five months and lost it by merely a single point in the final race to Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen.

Liam Regan, Eoin's younger brother, recalls Lewis staying at their family home in Belfast when attending a race meeting at Nutts Corner. It was an agonising weekend. McLaren, knowing Hamilton needed only to finish fifth to clinch the title even if Massa won, took an overly conservative approach, Lowe admits. It led to one of the most spectacular finishes the sport has ever seen. Lewis was successful but I hadn't grasped how special he was - you never know until you work with somebody," he says. A massive self-belief A brilliant win in Japan followed, in torrential rain that caused Alonso to crash, and Hamilton went to the penultimate race in China with a chance of clinching the title in his debut season.

It was the worst time of my life,” Anthony says. "It’s difficult to explain it. I think I probably was too much of an ogre. It was, ‘Lewis, do this, do that.’ And it was, ‘Come on, Dad, I’m a grown man.’ As the man who had ended Schumacher’s domination of F1 with Ferrari, Alonso had established himself as the sport’s leading driver. Although it wasn’t in his contract, the Spaniard felt his status demanded he be McLaren’s team leader and designated championship contender. Hamilton had other ideas. People overlook his brilliance because they don't like the way he dresses, they don't like this and they don't like that. The Lewis that people see now, there are reasons why he is like that.

His 2017 title triumph was the product of Hamilton raising his game and performing at a consistently higher level. He demonstrated superior speed (with 11 pole positions he extended his career total to 72, a F1 record), unerring precision (his only notable crash came during qualifying at Interlagos), relentless aggression (pushing himself with a deep-seated self-belief that he was unbeatable), exemplary racecraft (remaining steadfastly composed and controlled under pressure) and remarkable efficiency (he scored points in all 20 races, winning nine of them and finishing on the podium 13 times). Moreover, his tremendous pace and stylish verve behind the wheel were exciting for the sport. Shoot!", he exclaimed while celebrating tearfully with his nearest and dearest, among them his glamorous pop singer girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger. "I'm ecstatic, very emotional, very thankful for my family, my team and everyone who has supported me in this fairy-tale story." There was a high level of dedication even at that stage. I remember us all sitting round the kitchen table having a Chinese and poring over the data from testing. " Lewis with Liam, right, and older brother Donall after a race meeting at Nutts CornerThere were stressful days but it never lingered. There were times you wanted to go in different directions but ultimately we all wanted to win." When Lewis came to stay