Lewis Hamilton is an anomaly in Formula One. for several reasons other than his being the best driver and Formula One’s only Black driver.  Automobile Racing is expensive, which is why, even today, it is a rich man’s sport. But Hamilton was an exception…sort of. While he was born and grew up in a working-class family, early in his career, while racing an old Go Cart and winning against much more expensive Go Carts, Hamilton was seen by Ron Dennis, the very rich CEO of McLaren Racing. That led to Dennis signing Hamilton on to the McLaren Young Driver Program in 1997, backing Hamilton through Formula 3 and then Formula 2. He started racing for the McLaren Formula One Team in 2007.

Under Ron Dennis, McLaren had become, behind Ferrari, the second most successful Formula One Team. Dennis ran a very tight ship, and Hamilton was expected to conform. But the world was changing, and McLaren wasn’t. It was on the way down. Still, Hamilton won his first Championship and McLaren’s last, in 2008, becoming the youngest Formula One World Champion. In late 2012, Lewis Hamilton left McLaren and joined the Mercedes Team, leaving the very cloistered environment of McLaren for a team in which they only cared how he drove.

Hamilton blossomed. Between 2013 and 2020, he won six World Driver Championships for Mercedes. He also started wearing his hair in dreadlocks, and he covered his body in tattoos. In his spare time, he took up skydiving, snowboarding, and surfing. See below for gratuitous skydiving and snowboarding videos.

However, aside from driving a very fast Formula 1 car very fast, Lewis Hamilton’s biggest love seems to be clothing, especially streetwear. If what they wear to the racetrack is any indicator, Formula One drivers are pretty conservative dressers. Except for Lewis (of course).

Almost every year, Lewis attends the super-expensive Met Gala, which is a fundraiser for the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. This year, the tickets were $70,000 a pop, and the theme was “The Garden of Time.” Inspired by a J.G. Ballard short story of the same title. Lewis wore an outfit inspired by the story of John Ystumllyn, a freed slave who became Wales’ first black gardener. Inside the coat was a poem by Alex Wharton, a black poet in England, about Ystumllyn entitled The Gardener.

Mercedes encouraged and played off of Lewis’es interests and activities. When Black Lives Matter became a rallying cry, Mercedes changed the color of their racecars from traditional silver to black. Still, Lewis Hamilton is now going to Ferrari, and Ferrari is very different.

Ferrari has been racing since 1950 and is the most successful and famous Formula One team ever. At Ferrari, everything is about Ferrari, and everybody, especially the drivers, is expected to conform. To me, that seems like a mismatch, so it will be interesting to see what happens.