1. Lewis’s parents named him after the American Olympic athlete Carl Lewis. His full name is Lewis Carl Hamilton.

2. When Lewis started to achieve karting success in his early years he attracted the unwanted attention of local bullies. He took up karate and by the time he was 12 he had gained a black belt.

3. Lewis was the youngest karting champion in Britain, aged 10. Even before he made his Formula 1 debut he had already won over 300 trophies.

4. When Lewis was only 9 he approached Ron Dennis, the McLaren F1 team boss and said “I’m going to race for you one day… I’m going to race for McLaren”.

5. McLaren subsuquently signed Lewis to the driver development support programme aged 13. The contract included a special option of a future F1 seat - making history as the youngest ever driver to get an F1 contract.

6. Lewis’s old Kart was sold on eBay for £42,100. Lewis donated the money to the baby charity Tommy’s.

7. Lewis has worn his customary yellow helmet since his early karting days. It was his Dad’s idea as he thought Lewis needed something to make him more visible on busy tracks.

8. At the beginning of the season, an engineer from a rival F1 team bet 1000 euros on Lewis winning the 2007 World Championship. He was given odds of 30 to 1, netting him 30,000 euros if Lewis wins.

9. Lewis holds the record for the most consecutive podiums from a debut race. Including today’s result in the British Grand Prix he has had 9 podium finishes so far, the previous record was 2.

10. Lewis is also the first driver to achieve consecutive wins from pole position in debut season. Not to mention the fact that he’s also the youngest driver to ever lead the F1 World Championship.

11. In 2006 Lewis told a reporter that it was a “safe bet” that he would win the F1 title within 5 years.

12.  Off the track Lewis drives a Mercedes GL 4×4.

13.  Lewis is a huge fan of reggae star Bob Marley and his sons Damian Marley and Ziggy Marley.

14. Lewis invited superstar rapper and producer Pharrell Williams as his guest to the US Grand Prix. They also partied togther in London recently at P. Diddy’s lauch party for is new fragrance.

15. Today’s British Grand Prix is the first time in 11 years that a driver has started in pole position on his home Grand Prix. The last driver to achieve this was Damon Hill.

16. Silverstone achieved a record crowd of 80,000 people for the Qualifying races at Silverstone this year. That’s more than watched the actual British Grand Prix itself last year and beats the previous record of a Qualifying attendance by 12,000. Another result of Hamilton Mania!

17. Some bookies have already stopped taking bets on Lewis winning the 2007 BBC Sports Personality of the Year as they are so sure he will win.

18. The demand to see Lewis’s British Grand Prix debut at Silverstone this year, that it has been broadcast live to 30 Vue mutiplex cinemas across the UK. Another first.

19. Lewis’s first ever TV debut was on Blue Peter aged 6. He was interviewed after winning a remote-control car race against much older competitors.

20. Lewis doesn’t like to give interviews on the grid before a race. Anthony, Lewis’s Dad says that although he isn’t superstitious “if it isn’t broken then no need to fix it.”