Lewis Hamilton on the pole at the British Grand Prix.

He didn’t take the checkered flag at the British Grand Prix, his “home” track, but Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton is certainly making his mark in the sport:

…this was still his ninth consecutive podium finish – something that no rookie driver has come close to and an achievement that puts him third in the all-time list for consecutive podium finishes in Formula One.

Only Alonso, with 15 successive podium finishes, and Michael Schumacher with 19, remain ahead of Hamilton in this exalted category. What is more, the young British star, whom the Italian media have quite appropriately dubbed Il Fenomeno(the phenomenon), left Silverstone last night with his World Championship lead still very much intact. At the halfway point in the season, his advantage over Alonso has been cut back by two points, but he is nevertheless 12 points to the good.

Fernando Alonso (2nd), Kimi Raikkonen (1st), Lewis Hamilton (3rd), on the podium at Silverstone

Along with his ability to cross the finish line, there is another line Hamilton has crossed, he’s the first black driver in Formula One’s 57 year history, and the first black driver in Grand Prix racing, which dates back to the late 1800s.

In the early 1960s, NASCAR broke the race barrier when Wendell Scott took to the track, and the Indy 500 broke that barrier in 1991. Formula One broke the sex barrier in 1958, and there have been 5 women drivers. It surprises me that Formula One, with a long history of attracting drivers from all over the world, took so long to take such a small step forward.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 8th, 2007 at 11:12 pm and is filed under Sports, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.