SPORTS: Lewis Hamilton is knighted

Rac­ing dri­ver Lewis Hamil­ton today received his knight­hood — just days after his F1 cham­pi­onship heart­break in Abu Dhabi.

The For­mu­la One ace, 36, was award­ed the hon­our by Prince Charles at an Investi­ture at Wind­sor Cas­tle this morning.

He was accom­pa­nied at the cer­e­mo­ny by his moth­er Car­men Lar­balesti­er, who along with his father, Antho­ny, has been an enthu­si­as­tic sup­port­er of his rac­ing career.

Hamil­ton, a sev­en time F1 world cham­pi­on, received the knight­hood for ser­vices to motor­sport. He joins Sir Jack­ie Stew­art, Sir Stir­ling Moss and Sir Jack Brab­ham as the fourth F1 rac­er to be knighted.

It comes just days after Hamil­ton lost out on his record-break­ing eighth F1 world cham­pi­onship title — being pipped by Dutch dri­ver Max Ver­stap­pen in con­tro­ver­sial style in Abu Dhabi.

Rac­ing dri­ver Lewis Hamil­ton today received his knight­hood — just days after his F1 cham­pi­onship heart­break. His moth­er Car­men Lar­balesti­er is pic­tured here to the right +12
Rac­ing dri­ver Lewis Hamil­ton today received his knight­hood — just days after his F1 cham­pi­onship heart­break. His moth­er Car­men Lar­balesti­er is pic­tured here to the right

The For­mu­la One ace, 36, was award­ed the hon­our by Prince Charles at an Investi­ture at Wind­sor Cas­tle this morn­ing +12
The For­mu­la One ace, 36, was award­ed the hon­our by Prince Charles at an Investi­ture at Wind­sor Cas­tle this morning

Sir Lewis Hamil­ton and his moth­er, Car­men Lar­balesti­er, after his knight­hood at an Investi­ture at Wind­sor Cas­tle +12
Sir Lewis Hamil­ton and his moth­er, Car­men Lar­balesti­er, after his knight­hood at an Investi­ture at Wind­sor Castle

Sir Lewis Hamil­ton’s rac­ing records

• Most F1 world cham­pi­onships: 7 — joint with Michael Schumacher
• Most wins in For­mu­la 1: 103
• Most points in For­mu­la 1: 4165.5
• Most con­sec­u­tive race starts: 265
• Most entries with a sin­gle engine man­u­fac­tur­er: 288 (Mer­cedes)
• Most con­sec­u­tive points fin­ish­es: 48
• Most pole posi­tions: 103
• Most podi­um fin­ish­es: 182
• Most races fin­ished in the points: 249
• Most con­sec­u­tive race fin­ish­es: 48 (2018 British Grand Prix-2020 Bahrain Grand Prix)
• Most laps led in F1: 5396

The Mer­cedes dri­ver was cruis­ing to vic­to­ry in Sun­day’s race at Yas Mari­na — a win that would have secured him the 2021 cham­pi­onship — when a crash forced a safe­ty car out onto the track.

Hamil­ton had held an 11 sec­ond advan­tage over his title rival Ver­stap­pen when the safe­ty car was deployed to help remove Williams dri­ver Nico­las Lat­i­fi’s smashed-up car.

Hamil­ton was unable to pit for fresh tyres because his Mer­cedes team believed the race would end under a safe­ty car and he would have con­ced­ed his first place to Verstappen.

Red Bull were able to gam­ble and brought Ver­stap­pen in for a fresh set of fast soft tyres.

Hamil­ton had lapped sev­er­al cars which sat between him and Ver­stap­pen under the safe­ty car.

But then race direc­tor Michael Masi con­tro­ver­sial­ly allowed those cars to pass the safe­ty car to line up Hamil­ton and Ver­stap­pen for a final lap showdown.

Ver­stap­pen, on new tyres, eas­i­ly breezed past Hamil­ton in the final lap to clinch the race win and the championship.

While Hamil­ton appeared gra­cious in defeat, his Mer­cedes team were furi­ous at Masi’s deci­sion, and lodged protests in a bid to over­turn the result.

The protests were reject­ed and Mer­cedes are now con­sid­er­ing a fur­ther appeal, believ­ing that Masi’s deci­sion con­tra­vened F1 rules set out by the FIA.

The win would have made Hamil­ton F1’s most dec­o­rat­ed dri­ver. He is cur­rent­ly lev­el with fel­low F1 leg­end Michael Michael Schu­mach­er on sev­en world championships.