Early days for our present champions
One quarter of immediately’s grid had not but been born in 1998. McLaren’s present pairing of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri had been but to reach into the world, as had been their fellow 2024 drivers Zhou Guanyu, Yuki Tsunoda and Franco Colapinto.
However what of those that had been round again then? Coincidentally, there have been three world champions on the grid at the start of 1998 – Schumacher, Hill and Villeneuve – which marks the identical variety of title winners which are energetic in 2024 – step ahead Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.
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So what had been the champions of immediately doing again in 1998? Effectively, Alonso, Hamilton and Verstappen had been 17, 13 and one years previous respectively, so Verstappen’s racing profession wouldn’t begin for one more few years.
Alonso had been climbing the ranks in karting world championships and would go on to make his single-seater debut in Method Nissan in 1999.
Hamilton, in the meantime, had additionally been impressing in karting, a lot in order that he joined the McLaren Younger Driver Improvement Programme in 1998 – three years after famously telling Ron Dennis at an awards ceremony that he would in the future drive one among his vehicles. The remainder is historical past.
Drives just like the one seen within the video under had been serving to the Briton to catch the attention, with the teen going from the again of the sphere to win a Method Junior Intercontinental karting race at Buckmore Park in Kent, England.