Lewis Hamilton has revealed his dream of living in Monaco -- the venue for this weekend’s sixth round of the Formula 1 championship -- dates back to a trip in a private jet belonging to the father of his former Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg.
Hamilton has been a resident of Monaco since 2010 when he moved to the principality from Switzerland while driving for the McLaren F1 team.
The British driver, who grew up in Stevenage in the United Kingdom, said he first dreamt about moving to the tax haven shortly after he was signed by McLaren to race in go-karts alongside Rosberg.
Following a race in which Hamilton overtook Rosberg on the final lap, the 13-year-old Hamilton was invited to visit the Rosbergs’ flat in Monaco and travelled there onboard a jet owned by 1982 F1 champion Keke Rosberg.
“Whenever I’m here, I always just think, reminisce a lot about when I was younger,” Hamilton said. “I would say one of the positive things which I probably never even spoke about, was when I was like 13, I’d just been signed by Mercedes and McLaren, and I’d just started racing in Europe, when I moved to Italy to race in Italy.
“Nico was like the golden child at the time, and I remember, I think one of my first races -- I was with Top-Kart, he was with CRG -- and I can’t remember if he was on pole, I think he was pole and I was in second, and we had our first race in Parma and it was 23 laps, and I was stuck right behind him for 22 laps, just pushing him to get away from the rest, and then on the last lap I overtook him to win the race. That’s where our partnership, our friendship kind of started, and he invited me to go to his home.
“I remember getting on his dad’s jet at the time, and I was like ‘holy crap,’ I didn’t even know they had private jets! It was the most unbelievable eye-opening experience, and we landed and his dad had a heli [copter] just standing next to it, and I was like ‘this is like James Bond stuff!’
“Then I came here, to where I live today, in the same building that he grew up in, and I remember going through his parents’ apartment and seeing the view, and it was like, I’ve never seen anything like this, and that became a dream.
“It was like ‘one day I’m going to have the heli [copter] and one day I’m gonna live in a place like this,’ and that’s where I live today.”
Hamilton, whose own father Anthony worked multiple jobs and remortgaged his house to pay for his son’s early karting career, said he never dreamt of living in Monaco until he went to visit the Rosbergs.
“It just takes me back to the fact that if you can’t see it, sometimes it’s really hard to believe it,” he said.
“I was fortunate to have experiences like that, that really show me what is possible, because when you’re growing up in a small town like where I came from, and you don’t get to experience sometimes, it’s sometimes really hard to know that that’s even achievable, and thanks to racing, and thanks to signing with McLaren, and meeting Nico ... That was really cool.”
Hamilton said his success story largely hinged on being signed by McLaren when he was 13, which helped provide the funds to move up the motorsport ladder.
Amid escalating costs in karting, the 41-year-old doubts drivers from a similar economic background would be able to follow the same path today.
“I’ve not spent any time really looking at it, because it’s something that’s just constantly going in the wrong direction, in my opinion,” he said of the escalating costs of motorsport.
“There’s no accountability in terms of the people that run these organisations, or run the sports. It needs to be, I don’t know how, but there needs to be some way to make it accessible.
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“I know someone that has a kid who’s eight years old, who is spending over a million dollars a year. Of course, it’s more expensive today, but when I started, I remember my dad spent like, I think, £20,000 in the first year, and that was like, remortgaging the house and maxing out all the credit cards.
“I just think today, it’s highly unlikely, if not impossible, for someone from a normal background to be able to make it to a place to compete with those that spend the minimum. It just shouldn’t be allowed, and when you get to the other category, it’s more and more expensive.
“So it’s a real shame, rather than who’s got the most talent comes through, it’s the families with the most money that create the options for the kids and it’s the privileged kids that come through.
“Unfortunately, for the short-term that’s what you are going to see for the next several decades until that changes. And that’s down to the FIA and Formula 1, they actually need to make those changes, it’s highly unlikely unless people like you guys [the media] hold them accountable.”
