Hamilton: Motorsport even harder to break into today

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Three-time Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton has been speaking of his early days in motor racing, and said that it's even more difficult to become a success in the sport today than when he was first starting out aged eight.

But he added that some of the best races he'd seen in recent times came from those very same youngsters just taking their first steps in the sport.

"The best races are from the young kids from like ten years old," Hamilton told French television programme Quotidien this week

"That's really the best racing, better than Formula One, better than all the other categories. There's no fear in those kids."

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However Hamilton stressed how difficult it was any of them to follow in own his footsteps to the pinnacle of world motorsport, given the amount of competition and the spiralling costs involved at every level.

"I think it's very difficult nowadays, there's so many great young kids coming though," he said. "To get to Formula One, it's more expensive now. Technology has advanced so much.

"Karting is more expensive - my dad mortgaged our house like three or four times to let me go karting. It's so expensive, that's the difficult thing about trying to get to Formula One - it's not as simple.

"For me, honestly, we came from nothing, we didn't have any money when we started racing. I think for me, I always had that hunger since I was a kid racing against wealthier families. That's really what drives me.

"You've got to have energy, you've got to have talent, you've got to have a lot of belief in yourself, I would say. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for my family," he added. "And envy!"

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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.