Categories: Look backRace and classic pictures

Just the first of many for Hamilton

On 19 March, 2007 a certain Lewis Hamilton made his début in Formula One and made it all the way onto the podium for the first time by coming third in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. Joining him on the podium was his McLaren team mate Fernando Alonso and race winner Kimi Raikkonen, who would go on to clinch that year's title with Ferrari by just a single point from Lewis. Flash forward to 2015 and Lewis now has two championships, 38 wins and 79 podiums to his name from a total of 158 starts in Formula One, so you can forgive him if he doesn't quite look as fresh faced as he did eight and a half years ago.

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.