Woking

Woking in Surrey is home to one of the top Formula One racing teams, Mclaren. The team takes its name from the founder Bruce Mclaren, a New Zealander who set it up back in 1963. Little did he know back then just how successful his team would become. Just listen to some of these statistics! By the end of the 2007 season it had competed in 631 races, winning 156 of them from 134 pole positions. 11 Mclaren drivers have been world champion and the team has won 8 constructor's titles. They share the record with age old rivals Ferrari of most wins in a season with 15 and on 44 occasions have finished first and second in the same race. Quite something in the ultra-competitive sport of F1.

2007 saw the McLaren team give the young Englishman Lewis Hamilton his debut. Named after another speedy competitor, Carl Lewis, he set the championship alight with his incredible speed and skill.

Born in Stevenage, just north of London, in 1975 he was already racing karts before his ninth birthday. A year later he had his first meeting with Mclaren boss Ron Dennis, where the confident young man told Dennis he would one day drive for McLaren and become world champion. Some nerve! Still, the first part of his prediction has already been realised.

His first race was at the season's opener in Australia, a race won by Ferrari but where Lewis finished a very respectable third - not bad for his debut. Then in Malaysia he improved on his previous finish by taking second place, and repeated the feat in the next race at Bahrain. The world was starting to take notice, and so too was his team-mate and current world champion Fernando Alonso! Two more second placed finishes and this young upstart was leading the championship, seeming almost unstoppable. In fact, he won the next two races and was already the most successful rookie in the history of the sport. Two more podium finishes followed before he finally came down to earth with a bump at the European Grand Prix, finishing a lowly ninth. Had the bubble burst for Hamilton? Alonso hoped so, as did the Ferrari team. However, he won the next race in Hungary to silence his critics (although to be honest there were very few of them indeed!)

The back end of the season saw things starting to turn a bit sour. The scandal of the McLaren - Ferrari spy story was putting pressure on the team and its drivers. The war of words between Hamilton and Alonso was very public and they made no pretence of their dislike for each other. Results started to go more and more Ferrari's way and the Finnish driver, Raikkonen, was emerging as a real threat to Hamilton's dream of being the first black F1 champion, the youngest F1 champion and the only F1 champion in his debut season. With just two races left Hamilton needed just one more podium to secure his place in history. In China he retired from the race, having driven into the gravel in the pit lane - a mistake almost unheard of in F1, but one made because he had no grip left on his tyres. At the final race of the season in Brazil he again made a mistake in the race, had mechanical problems with the car and finished only 7th. The points from that race weren't enough to stop Raikkonen from winning the 2007 championship by a solitary point. Heartbreak for Lewis Hamilton, but a season to remember and a lot of experience gained for his quest to win the title he has dreamed of since he was a young boy. Good luck to him!