The little brother of Lewis tells Audrey Ward how he learnt to live with cerebral palsy and overcame a gambling addiction to take his own place on the starting grid.
Nicolas Hamilton is recalling his 24th birthday and the present his big brother, Lewis, gave him. “We were at dinner in London. We went out to the car park and he said, ‘Wow, look at that car, that’s so cool.’ It was a midnight blue C63 Mercedes. “I think I described it as ‘amazing’ and then he held out the key and said, ‘Happy birthday.’ I was gobsmacked. I remember him saying, ‘It’s insured, it’s ready to go, just drive it home.’ "
Nicolas, however grateful for the gift from his brother, the seven-times Formula One world champion, didn’t have the car for long. Within the year, he had sold “his pride and joy” to pay off the debts of a six-month gambling binge that sent him spiralling into depression.
Nicolas, now 32, is Lewis’s half-brother. Lewis, 39, was born in Stevenage in 1985 to Anthony Hamilton, then a computer manager at British Rail, and Carmen Larbalestier, a secretary at the council. They divorced when he was two and Anthony went on to marry his work colleague Linda. Nicolas was born two months premature in 1992, spending the first six weeks of his life in intensive care. At 18 months old he was diagnosed with spastic diplegia, a form of cerebral palsy that affects balance and muscle movement in the lower half of the body.
His disability didn’t stop him following Lewis into motorsport, making his debut in 2011 in a modified car against able-bodied drivers in the Renault Clio Cup. In 2015 he became the first disabled driver to compete in the British Touring Car Championship. He had a sideline as a consultant for racing video games and invested everything he was earning into racing, using his savings when sponsorship became scarce. Then the sponsorship dried up entirely — and his life imploded. “I wasn’t racing. I didn’t feel valuable. I felt like no one cared,” he says. “I felt like I had to try and make some money. It’s hard to make money as a disabled person. My dad worked so hard to make money. I was, like, they’re [his dad and Lewis] making loads and I’m not.”
Nicolas knew next to nothing about gambling. It began with a £2 bet: at a friend’s instigation he put it on Arsenal to score in a game. “I won and then I went home and I delved deeper.” He went onto online casinos and started winning at blackjack. “I wanted more of the winnings — and the losing didn’t really deter me. It just got me in a cycle.” He started chasing his losses, placing £5 bets that grew to £100 ($210) bets. Soon he was betting thousands.
Gambling became all-consuming. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it — I just wanted to go back to my computer. The whole day would go quite easily. I could see it was a problem but I was too far in. I was scared to stop. I’d lost so much money that I felt like, if I stopped, I was in a hole that I wouldn’t get out of.” He gambled at every opportunity and would often sit, unshowered and in dirty clothes, crying at his computer. He sustained himself on Pot Noodles. At this point his brother was three years into a stellar career with Mercedes and would soon be earning a salary of more than £24 million ($50 million) a year, before highly lucrative sponsorship deals and endorsements. But Nicolas said nothing.
His final descent began in 2017 with the arrival of a tax bill. For his work on video games, he would spend up to eight hours a day reality-checking virtual cars and reporting back to the developers. He didn’t think about putting an amount aside for tax and continued to withdraw money from his business to feed his gambling habit. “I was very naive about finances, tax bills and all that sort of stuff,” he says.
So he made the decision to sell his beloved C63 Mercedes. “I felt so ashamed, using this amazing gift to pay my tax bill. It felt like I had practically stolen the money from my brother and I have never forgiven myself for that,” he writes in his book, Now That I Have Your Attention.
“It destroyed me,” he says. “I got a real wake-up call. I had no way of going forward because I’d lost everything. I was stuck. I had a balcony at my flat and I was thinking what would I do if I just jumped off it.”
Throughout their lives, Lewis had given his brother advice — including on how to conquer his fear after a terrifying racetrack collision in 2011 at Thruxton, Hampshire, the fastest circuit in the UK. On a corner, he hit a tyre barrier at 100mph (160km/h) and was knocked out. When he regained consciousness he could see that the engine and bonnet were smoking and terror took over. A marshal pulled him out with the words: “Oh dear, Lewis isn’t going to be impressed with this, is he?” “The most insensitive comment. Even at my most vulnerable moment, when I was in the midst of experiencing the scariest, closest-to-death moment of my life, people will still compare me with him,” he writes. That evening Lewis called him and advised him to go and take the same corner again as fast as he could, as if nothing had happened.
At the time he didn’t confide in Lewis or his parents about his gambling and he and Lewis have never discussed what happened to the C63 Mercedes — although Nicolas suspects his parents told Lewis.
Ahead of meeting Nicolas, I had been braced for a degree of wariness over discussing his famous brother. But he brings him up frequently, and when he does his face lights up. He clearly adores Lewis and says he is proud of his recent move to Ferrari after almost 12 years with Mercedes. “I think it’s the best decision he could have made. Everyone knows the car [at Mercedes] is not as strong as we all would have liked it to have been. And I think, for Lewis, he has been racing for so long now he needs to find his motivation to continue racing. It’s a new chapter for him. I wish him the best.”
But the impression I get is that Nicolas and Lewis, who lives in Monte Carlo, are not as close as they once were. “I don’t go to any of his races any more. I haven’t for a long time,” Nicolas says. “It started out because my races clashed with his, but to be honest I leave Lewis to it. I don’t see him very often. To see Lewis I would have to take a lot of time away from my life.” He adds: “I’m always at the end of the phone if he needs me.”
At Nicolas’s modest home in Stevenage — where he lives alone following a break-up with his long-term girlfriend — he shows me his office, a converted garage. His computer and gaming equipment take up one corner and, in another, eight racing helmets are lined up on two shelves. “My dad owns this house. He owns both of these houses,” he says, gesturing to the property next door. “I just rent it off him.”
As a baby, it became apparent to his parents that Nicolas wasn’t meeting his milestones. “I wasn’t able to crawl and alternate my legs. Every time I tried to stand, I was on my tiptoes.” For much of his teens he used a wheelchair, but since the age of 18 he has walked unaided, defying the early expectations of his doctors. Today he walks with a lopsided gait and suffers from back, neck, pelvic and muscular pain: “Pain will always be a part of my day,” he says, but it’s manageable. “I do not take anything for it. I learn to deal with it and reduce the pain by getting regular [physio] treatments.”
He is full of praise for his parents. As a child he lived in a one-bedroom council flat with them and Lewis. His dad took on extra jobs to support his family and his eldest son’s racing ambitions. Dinners were often pasta with chicken soup because that was all the family could afford. “I didn’t feel at that age that money was tight,” Nicolas says. “I didn’t feel like my opportunities were less than the others around me, which is a testament to my parents.”
His parents adopted a tough-love approach, even refusing to pick him up when he fell. When his son asked for help, Anthony would say, “No, I’m not always going to be here. You have to learn to do this for yourself.” “Nic, you’re fine,” his mother would tell him. “Brush yourself off.” He says he is incredibly resilient and self-reliant as a result, but he is also dealing with the mental fallout of “being a disabled person and pushing it under the carpet” for so long. He has been having therapy on and off since 2013 and still sees a therapist today.
At the weekends the tight-knit family travelled to Lewis’s go-karting competitions. He had started karting at eight, and in those early years Anthony — who was Lewis’s manager until 2010 — was devoted to making him a champion. “It was fun,” Nicolas says. “Karting took over my life, so it was only natural for me to want to have a go.” But he had an inauspicious start: aged seven, his dad took him to a car park for a test drive and he hit a kerb and fell down a 6ft drop. It didn’t deter him.
He and Lewis had a strong bond. “We were super close,” Nicolas says. “We were very happy whatever we did. A lot of it was video games and then we used to go outside and play basketball. He didn’t treat me any differently, so we would still run races, which I obviously wouldn’t win. It never upset me: it actually spurred me on to either run faster or become more mobile. I don’t think that was his plan but it was the effect he had on me.” He says there was no sibling rivalry outside their games. “It has never been ‘I want to be better than him, bigger than him’, and I don’t think he ever wanted to be bigger or better than me.”
In his 2008 autobiography Lewis recalled an operation Nicolas had at the age of four to extend the tendons in his legs. When the doctor went to remove his casts Nicolas burst into tears, believing his legs were about to be cut off. “He cried his eyes out but it wasn’t long before that smile came back to his face. That smile — it is infectious and inspirational. It taught me a lot about life. He made such a big impact on me and on the way I think about things. Nic has always been my number one fan and I am his.”
In Nicolas’s teens came the predictable hassle from school bullies, who would mimic the way he walked or tip up his wheelchair, leaving him stranded. By this point Lewis had made his F1 debut and Nicolas was missing time in the classroom to travel with his family to competitions. “A lot of kids get jealous,” he says.
Lewis, who had also been bullied at school and had taken up karate to defend himself, urged his little brother to become a daredevil in his chair to impress his classmates. He taught him tricks — wheelies, bunny-hopping down stairs and over obstacles — which proved a temporary distraction.
But growing up disabled alongside a sporting prodigy was complex. “It felt like no one had the time to listen to my thoughts or opinions, and that nothing I said or thought mattered,” Nicolas writes. “No one ever said, ‘Are you OK?’ Or if they did, it didn’t feel like they really cared about the answer. At home, my dad and Lewis were busy building extraordinary careers within motorsport At the same time Mum was trying to hold it all together [because of his diagnosis].” The title of his book, Now That I Have Your Attention, could be interpreted as a nod to the frustration he felt at that time.
Inevitably Lewis was the one to encourage Nicolas to take a shot at motorsport when he turned 18. By this point he had built up enough strength in his legs to no longer need a wheelchair. He started out on a simulator and began winning gaming championships. “Lewis could see that I was good on a simulator,” Nicolas says. “He planted the seed in my mind.”
His father funded his first season and helped him get sponsorship, but Nicolas never looked for financial help from Lewis or his parents beyond that. “I know pretty much everyone presumes that Lewis bankrolls me in my motorsport career, that he pays for everything and provides endless opportunities because of his wealth and success in the sport, but it’s just not true; it is also something that I would never want or accept,” he writes.
His online gambling days are behind him now. He survived his lowest ebb thanks to daily calls to the Samaritans for two weeks. “It was the best thing for me to do, just to have someone on the other end of the phone.” Eventually he confided in a friend and then confessed everything to his mother. “My mum and dad came to my house and their reaction was a lot better than I thought it would be. My dad had a lot of understanding: I think he felt sorry for me. He said, ‘Nic, if you ever need any help financially ' But I’ve never been a person to accept that. I was, like, ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ I was very embarrassed by it but they were there to support me and once I’d had that conversation, I got it all off my chest.”
He gave his mother control over his bank accounts, blocked himself from gambling sites and slowly got back to a normal routine — including showering and brushing his teeth. “Gambling is no longer an issue,” he says, adding, “I’ve been to a casino recently. I went to Vegas for work. You can’t go to Vegas and not have a flutter. I enjoyed it and still enjoy it, but I would never " he trails off. “I know the repercussions.”
He also made a return to the British Touring Cars Championship, finishing sixth out of 27 at Donington Park last year, a personal best. “To come across the line with that result, after everything I’ve been through Best day of my life,” he says. Since then he has parted ways with his team, Team Hard, and uncertainty lingers over his future in motorsport, mainly due to raising sponsorship. “I’d love to be back on the grid and I think I deserve to be, but I’ve got to find half a million pounds,” he says. For now, he is focusing on a growing career as a public speaker, having “realised the powerful voice that I have”.
But what made last year’s race sweeter was the unexpected presence of his brother in the crowd. “I felt a massive pressure,” he says of the moment he learnt that Lewis, who hadn’t been trackside at one of his races since 2019, was looking on incognito. “I was really nervous. I wanted to show him how far I’ve come as a driver. I know he never wants to put pressure on me, but it’s his persona. Even though he’s just my bro, he’s still the best human being to ever sit behind the steering wheel of a car.”
Lewis, who at the time was gearing up for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, didn’t make it to the pitlanes following the race but he called Nicolas afterwards. “He was, like, ‘You drove f***ing amazing.’ And for him to say that to me, it means so much. After all these years of me watching him from the sidelines, him having success and that sort of stuff, now he’s watching me. It’s full circle.”
Now That I have Your Attention by Nicolas Hamilton (Octopus) is on sale now.
Written by: Audrey Ward
© The Times of London