ANTHONY HAMILTON

In a world where money appears to be everything, Anthony Hamilton has bucked a trend, seeing his son Lewis Hamilton go from a Stevenage council estate to become one of the greatest racing drivers of all time. The former manager of the F1 champion, managed to turn his son’s early obsession with cars into a skill by taking him to the local go-kart track from the age of eight.

As far as he was concerned, it was not so much about developing a natural talent but rather helping Lewis to develop better focus. He said: “That was obvious when he first had to take a driving test. When you’re seven or eight years of age, you need to show that you’re good enough to get a racing license for karts, and you’ve got to learn all the flags; so I said to Lewis, ‘if you want to go racing you’ve got to learn these things’ – he knew them within half an hour…”

Anthony is one of four siblings born to Grenadian parents, who arrived in this country in the mid-1950s and eventually set up home in Hanwell, west London. Dad Davidson worked on the London Underground while Agnes, his mum, was a nurse.

After his mother’s death in 1976, his dad returned to Grenada and 18-year-old Anthony decided to move to Stevenage in Hertfordshire. He subsequently got married and Lewis was born in 1985. Although the relationship broke down within in a couple of years and Lewis spent his early years with his mum, Anthony was very much on the scene.

In order to give himself more time to devote to his son, he gave up his IT job and worked for himself. At the same time, he was also working with Lewis’ half-brother, who is also a professional racing driver. Despite Lewis’ phenomenal success, Anthony believes children from modest backgrounds would find it hard to rise to the top of F1 these days. “I think Lewis is the last of it,” he said in 2016.

The Arsenal fan believes football is more of a level playing field and two years ago he brought out a football-training device designed to allow children to practice kick-ups, indoors, without smashing up the place.