Lewis Hamilton’s first taste of winning – his early years at Manor Motorsport

October 17, 2001, a chilly Wednesday at Mallory Park. It’s a routine test day for the Manor Motorsport Formula Renault team, which for the umpteenth time is giving a first ever car outing to a rising star of the karting world.

Team boss John Booth doesn’t have time to follow the junior ranks closely, and he has never previously heard of the driver strapped into the white and blue Tatuus. However, he knows that the 16-year-old has some momentum behind him given that the test – along with a four-race winter series programme that will follow – has been arranged and paid for by McLaren.

The Tatuus is up to competitive speeds surprisingly quickly, and that catches Booth’s attention. But then the session is red-flagged – the Manor machine is in the tyre wall at Gerards. The mechanics spend a few hours repairing the tangled rear end, and the youngster is given a second chance at the end of the day.

Booth has seen a lot of hotshoes in his time both as a driver and team boss. Indeed, just the previous year Manor had done such a good job of mentoring Kimi Räikkönen that the Finn was propelled straight into an F1 seat with Sauber.

Despite the crash Booth is quietly impressed by the teenager’s confident approach and demeanour, not to mention pace. This Lewis Hamilton, he concludes, will be worth watching.

Almost 23 years later, that day at Mallory has no doubt receded deep into the memory banks of a man who has won seven world championships and established himself as one of the all-time greats, and yet rarely has much interest in talking about his past.

It was all kick-started by the three-and-a-bit years that he spent with Manor – the first of only four racing teams that Hamilton has driven for in his career to date.   Hamilton was only 13 when in 1998 he was signed up by McLaren boss Ron Dennis after famously having the nerve to introduce himself at the Autosport Awards a few years earlier. The F1 team backed him as he progressed through the karting ranks into Intercontinental A and Formula A, winning the 2000 European and world titles as team–mate to Nico Rosberg in the latter class. A disappointing 2001 in Formula Super A – his MBM team was developing its own chassis – didn’t dilute McLaren’s enthusiasm.

Before the end of the year plans were made for a graduation to cars. McLaren managing director Martin Whitmarsh, perhaps encouraged by the fact that recent signing Räikkönen had raced for Manor in 2000, did the deal.

“We were in conversation with Martin on a separate matter altogether,” Booth recalls. “And during that conversation he said, ‘We’ve got a young karting lad we would like to give a test if possible.’ Incredibly, I didn’t follow karting very much. I actually had no idea who he was…”

Plans soon came together for the October outing at Mallory Park, where Manor driver coach Marc Hynes gave the youngster some tips.

“You’ve got to bear in mind that this guy had never driven a car before, even a road car”

“You’ve got to bear in mind that this guy had never driven a car before, even a road car,” recalls then Manor team manager Tony Shaw. “I remember Marc having to drive him around and teach him how a clutch worked! It was really in at the deep end for him, especially using the gear lever and all that sort of stuff.

“You could tell straight away he wasn’t scared of it. It was a fairly bumpy experience at Mallory, especially into the first corner – there was a big old jump into there that set the car leaping about a bit.”

“I said first time round, ‘Bloody hell this lad is confident!’” says Booth. “He wasn’t flat into Gerards, but he was bloody on it, really on it. For somebody who hadn’t really driven a road car or a gearbox kart, his gear changes were spot-on. Unfortunately he then lost it, and took the back of the car off.

“No nerves or concern, just really confident. He was quick”

“We set about rebuilding it, and it took the best part of the day to get everything back together. I think we got him out for the last hour, and the very first lap, he was right on it again. No nerves or concerns, just really confident and right back on it. The guy was bloody quick.”

After further testing at Snetterton was hampered by an engine issue Hamilton made his race debut in a winter series double-header at Rockingham on November 11. Lewis would recall the shock of his debut in his only book, 2007’s Lewis Hamilton: My Story: “In karting I was a king, but now I was back to basics. It was so aggressive on that first lap it was unreal, and I was like, ‘I’m going to have to pull my finger out!’”

He finished fourth in the day’s second race. At Donington a week later he surprised Hynes during a chat on the grid by suggesting that he could overtake at the Old Hairpin, not a conventional passing place. However it worked, and more than once. His learning curve continued with a grassy off at the chicane in race one, while he was fifth after a last lap moment in the second.

Hamilton had quickly formed a bond with Hynes, who had won the British F3 title – beating Luciano Burti and Jenson Button – just a couple of years earlier. Hynes would play a huge role in teaching him the intricacies of racing cars, focusing for example on how to brake for hairpins by tracing one out in the paddock and demonstrating on foot how to do it.

“Marc has good eyes,” says Booth. “It’s the preparation and how you conduct yourself as much as the driving with Marc.”

Hamilton still had much to learn at the start of his first full season in 2002, when he was up against drivers with more experience. And at McLaren’s insistence he had to juggle his racing with school. He logged a couple of podiums in the early races before a landmark maiden win from pole at Thruxton in June.

“He was really starting to be properly impressive from just prior to mid-season onwards,” says Shaw. “He was hard-working. I think the balance was quite right with him, in that he focused when he needed to, and he switched off when he needed to as well.”

Hamilton added further successes at Brands and Donington later in the season to claim third place, and top rookie, in the final standings. He also gained extra experience against stronger continental opposition with forays to Spa, Imola and Estoril, while also winning a Euro round at Donington.

“You’re straight in at such a young age,” says Booth. “It’s not a big step speedwise from karts to cars, but there are a lot of awareness differences, how big they are, people around you, and using mirrors and things like that. He adapted pretty well. I remember there wasn’t a lot of pressure from McLaren, but they obviously wanted to know what was happening.”

Lewis’s father, Anthony Hamilton, wanted Lewis to move straight into F3 in 2003, but Whitmarsh insisted on a second year in Renault. Expectations were high.

“Lewis was quickest at every winter test,” says Booth. “Sometimes by half a second or more. We thought he was going to absolutely monster the championship. The first couple of races didn’t go according to plan, but we had a podium or two.”

Shaw recalls that Hamilton was often reluctant to change a set-up he liked to make the most of new tyres in qualifying, which was standard practice in the category, although he was still getting poles: “I do remember having a little bit of a sit down and chat, ‘We need to let the boys do their job. You do the driving.’ He was finding his way, and he probably needed to make those mistakes to understand things for the future.”

“He went through and won the race with slicks on a damp track. It was a turning point”

Eventually everything came together. “At Silverstone he was running fourth or fifth, and it started raining halfway through,” says Booth. “And he just went through and won the race with slicks on a damp track. I think it was a turning point for him, for his confidence. We had every pole and won every race we entered after that.”

One success at Croft stood out, as Booth recalls: “The bolt sheared off the base of the damper, so he was basically running with three dampers.”

“He got used to it for a lap or two,” says Shaw. “And then he pulled away and won the race by a gap. He just sorted it out and drove it. He didn’t know what was wrong with it. He didn’t stop, and we weren’t going to stop him…”

“I was down at McLaren the week after,” says Booth. “I was in Martin’s office, explaining what had happened. And Ron Dennis came in and I was trying to explain how well Lewis had driven on three dampers. And all Ron was interested in was what grade was the bolt? Was it single shear? He wasn’t impressed by the drive at all. And he wasn’t impressed with our inability to keep a bloody car going!”

Having wrapped up the Renault UK title early Hamilton graduated to Manor’s F3 team at the end of the year. On his debut at Brands he was quick but became caught up in someone else’s shunt, before impressing at Macau and taking a stunning pole at the Korean season closer.

For 2004 McLaren decided to put Hamilton in the F3 Euro Series, which was also new ground for Manor. “Obviously we had to have Mercedes engines,” says Booth. “We wanted to run in the British championship, because it was what we knew – our bread and butter. But Mercedes only supplied engines for the Euro Series, so that’s why we finished up there.”

It was to be a difficult year for Hamilton, who would finish a disappointing fifth in the standings in a series dominated by Fred Vasseur’s ASM outfit. “We were up against some pretty good teams,” says Booth. “The tyre was new to us, and so was the championship. It was hard going at stages.

“I think the last official test before the first race was at Hockenheim, and Lewis had a monster shunt coming back into the stadium. That might have rattled him a little bit as well. It was a tough year. We only had one win, at Norisring. We weren’t as quick as we should have been, there’s no doubt about that. And I think Lewis knew where he wanted to be on the grid, and sometimes we couldn’t provide that for him. It became tricky at times.”

In the background Hamilton was also having issues with McLaren. The two sides had different views on what to do in 2005.