Lewis Hamilton’s younger brother continues to make a name for himself behind the racing wheel – and says his famous older sibling hasn’t funded even a single penny of his flourishing motorsports career. Nicolas Hamilton was once merely the cute kid brother of one of the world’s biggest motor racing stars but now the 26-year-old, who was diagnosed with spastic diplegia, a form of cerebral palsy, shortly after birth, is about to shine in his own right.
Frequently seen in a wheelchair supporting his older brother at races around the world when he was a teen, Nicolas no longer needs the aid to get around. And next weekend, the racing driver will begin his first full-season competitor in the British Touring Cars Championships at Brands Hatch – and his glamorous personal trainer girlfriend will be watching track-side.
Nicolas was the first ever disabled driver to compete in the series and told the Telegraph that he won’t accept hand-outs from his star sibling. He said: ‘Lewis hasn’t put a penny towards my motorsport. And he never will. I wouldn’t accept it, because I want to work for myself, and feel like I deserve it when I’m in my race seat.’ He said he’s a ‘one-man band’ and has had ‘to learn how to be a marketing director, a CEO and a racing driver all in one.’
Meanwhile, his older brother recently forked out a cool $40 million for a stunning penthouse apartment in Manhattan. The British native, 34, purchased the four bed penthouse in a celebrity studded condo project in Tribeca, just a block away from another penthouse he bought in 2017. On Instagram, the 26-year-old is clearly dedicated to both his racing career and his girlfriend.
Glamorous personal trainer Sophie Hamshere regularly appears on his feed and vice versa, with Sophie posting a romantic shot of the couple celebrating Christmas and their one year anniversary together. Another photo sees them embracing in front of a sleek white Mercedes, captioned with the line: ‘He drives me crazy, but I guess he’s just a bit of alright…’
The brothers, who have an eight-year age gap and share the same father, Anthony, but have different mothers, have spoken previously about their tight bond, with a young Nicolas following his older sibling to events around the country – and later the world – as he paved his to racing stardom.
The five-time F1 world champion sparked fury earlier this year when he told the audience at the Sports Personality of the Year awards that he had been desperate to escape ‘the slums’ of his hometown of Stevenage as a child. Speaking to presenter Gabby Logan, he said: ‘It really was a dream for us all as a family to do something different. For us to get out of the slums.
‘Well, not the slums, but to get out of somewhere and do something. We all set our goals very, very high but we did it as a team.’
