Lewis Hamilton rewrote the Formula 1 history books at the Circuit de Catalunya on this day in 2007, becoming the youngest-ever driver to lead the world championship standings at just 22 years, 4 months and 6 days old.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The McLaren rookie’s second-place finish behind Felipe Massa’s victorious Ferrari was enough to usurp team-mate Fernando Alonso at the summit.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
It broke a record that had stood for 47 years since Bruce McLaren established the benchmark at 22 years, 5 months and 8 days in 1960.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Hamilton’s remarkable start to his debut season had seen him finish on the podium in all four opening races.\u00a0\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
He secured third in Melbourne as Kimi Raikkonen took victory for Ferrari, before consecutive runner-up finishes in Malaysia, Bahrain and Spain, collecting 30 points from a possible 40.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The Briton’s consistency proved decisive over Alonso, who suffered a costly excursion at Turn 1 whilst battling Massa for the lead in Barcelona.\u00a0\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Despite being a two-time world champion, the Spaniard found himself trailing his inexperienced team-mate by two points in the standings – and the relationship would only turn more frosty as the season wore on.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Hamilton’s precocious achievement would ultimately be a footnote in a season that saw him narrowly miss out on the title to Raikkonen by a single point.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
However, it nevertheless it signalled the arrival of a generational talent who would go on to claim seven world championships, including his first the following year.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The record would remain intact for 19 years until Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli, at 19 years, 7 months and 4 days, took over championship leadership following his victory at the 2026 Japanese Grand Prix, further lowering the benchmark by nearly three years.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton rewrote the Formula 1 history books at the Circuit de Catalunya on this day in 2007,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-669984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}