I want to change the face of disability
The pioneering motorsport driver and younger brother of Lewis Hamilton on breaking boundaries and smashing expectations
As Nicolas Hamilton crossed the finish line in sixth place at the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) race at Donington Park, it was a moment he had dreamed of for years.
It was also something the pioneering 32-year-old motorsport driver admits he never thought would be possible, having been born with cerebral palsy.
Indeed, the fantastic result in April 2023 wasn’t just a result for Nicolas, but for disabled people worldwide.
“Me getting top six changed the perception of disability in motorsport,” says Nicolas, who drives for team HARD and was the first disabled athlete in the BTCC.
“I’d proved to everyone that I could achieve in top flight motorsport as a disabled person, beating able bodied people at their own game,” he says.
Nicolas is the younger half-brother of seven-times Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton, 39. And on Nicolas’s big day, his whole family were trackside to watch.
“I’d proved everyone wrong. The doctors who wrote me off as a child, the kids at school who bullied me mercilessly for being different, and everyone who had ever said ‘no’, ‘it’s not for him’ or ‘it’s too hard’ along the way,” he says.
“Even my family, when I first tried racing at 18, weren’t sure I’d be any good,” laughs Nicolas. “Although when I started making good lap times they quickly got on board and came along for the ride.”
Born in 1992 to Anthony and Linda Hamilton, Nicolas’s life was unconventional from the get go, with a diagnosis of cerebral palsy and a childhood spent following big bro Lewis as he climbed the motorsport ladder.
“I was pretty much born on a race track. From two years old, I was around engines, cars, loud noises, smoke and smell,” says Nicolas, who is also a successful motivational speaker and brand ambassador for global companies Google, Meta and more.
“But I knew from a young age that I was very different from my peers. Spastic diplegia affects me in terms of my legs, general movement and coordination. Balance was hard and until I had a tendon release operation I had to stand on my tip toes and couldn’t put my feet flat. I couldn’t pick my legs up high enough to clear the floor so I would trip over and hurt myself. I was in a wheelchair for much of high school.” Nicolas was also bullied. “Kids didn’t really want to play with me or have me as part of my group,” he remembers. “They’d play tag with me and love that I could never catch them.”
At 18, he sat in a racing car for the first time, quickly making waves as a new talent in the industry. But being Lewis’s little brother meant a his every move was in the spotlight.
“Everyone was comparing me to Lewis. It became quite toxic. If most drivers make a mistake, they crash and their car goes into the wall, nobody really cares. But for me, if I made a mistake I would get a kid and his dad coming to stand next to my car and take a picture.
“I have always been compared to Lewis and I always will be, and it can be hard. Although our paths to where we are today are completely different. It’s like playing for a local football team and your brother is Cristiano Ronaldo. It’s hard to step outside and have your own identity. That said, I am proud to be his brother. We’re close and always have been.”
At 19, despite initial promise on the race track, a nasty crash in 2011 sent an already vulnerable Nicolas to rock bottom.
“It really shook me. I nearly killed myself,” he says. “I’m certainly one person who has sat in a dark room, lost, lonely and feeling suicidal thoughts. Why me?
“I had to really work hard on regaining my confidence. Perhaps I wasn’t good enough after all?”
His grit, he says, pulled him through, something that was instilled in him by his family.
“When I fell as a child, I always wanted my mum to come over and pick me up, but she never did. She made me realise really early that falling over is OK and I shouldn’t be scared – I just need to get back up.”
And that is precisely the subject matter of Nicolas’s new book, Now That I Have Your Attention.
In it, he recounts his remarkable journey and shares the valuable, tough and often surprising lessons learned throughout his life.
“I’ve had to work 10 times harder for every single thing,” says Nicolas. “When I started driving, my legs were weak from being in a wheelchair for so long. I was the only disabled person in the field, racing against able bodied people who had been training for years and years
“As much as I was excited, I had to graft three hours a day trying to build my strength. My pelvis was coming out of line, my ribs were popping out. It was gruelling but it changed my life.
“To come from a disabled boy, passed over, pretty much not given the time of day by his peers, people at schools, teachers and doctors, to then be racing a car as the only disabled person in the field, creating history in motorsport, was pretty cool.”
He hopes to inspire others. “Disabled people should be accepted straight away, no strings or questions,” says Nicolas.
“You always get looked at twice, people look you up and down. Society generally shuts you out initially. But we can do this – I’m proof of that. What we need is a change of perspective.
“As a kid I didn’t understand why I had this condition, or what my purpose of being here was. Now I do – it’s to break down barriers and tell others that they can too.”
■Now That I Have Your Attention: 7 Lessons in Leading a Life Bigger Than They Expect by Nicolas Hamilton (£22, Radar) is out now
‘‘ To be not given the time of day, then be a disabled racing driver is pretty cool