Mclaren

Lewis' career started in 1993 and by the age of 10 Lewis had won his first British Kart championship. A further four British Kart championships followed in 1996 and 1997. At the age of 13 Lewis signed to the McLaren and Mercedes-Benz Young Driver Support Programme.

Throughout 1998 to 2000, Lewis won European and World Karting titles and was crowned Karting World No. 1 in 2000 at the age of 15. Lewis graduated to single-seater racing in 2002 in the Formula Renault category and finished 3rd in 2002 and winning the championship in 2003, setting a championship record with 10 wins, 9 fastest laps and 11 pole positions.

In 2004, Lewis raced in the Formula 3 Euroseries championship. Racing for Manor Motorsport, Lewis finished 5th having taken a win at the Norisring plus four further podiums. In 2005, Lewis won the Formula 3 Euroseries championship racing for the dominant ASM team. In 2006, he joined ART Grand Prix team in the GP2 Series. Lewis was the 2006 GP2 champion and is currently preparing for his second year as a Vodafone McLaren Mercedes F1 driver.

Kovalainen became the latest star graduate of Renault’s Driver Development programme last year. A contemporary of Raikkonen in karts, Heiki was then picked up by Renault . The French company invested heavily in Kovalainen and placed him in British Formula 3. He Starred in F3, then moving to the Nissan World Series, which he dominated in 2004.

By then,Renault had begun to call upon him as an F1 test driver with increasing regularity, and Kovalainen proved very much at home behind the wheel of a grand prix car. A move into the inaugural GP2 season followed for 2005, finishing second to Nico Rosberg, although the consensus was that Kovalainen had been equally impressive in what turned out to be a less competitive package.

Renault subsequently promoted Kovalainen to fully-fledged test and reserve driver status for 2006, and to a seat in the F1 car in 2007. A good season there took him to Mclaren for 2008, replacing former world Champion Fernando Alonso.