Sir Lewis Hamilton is set to add his mother’s surname to his name in the very near future, and he could end up racing with the new name in 2022.
While it has been well documented throughout his career that Anthony is Hamilton’s father, it is perhaps slightly less understood that Carmen Larbalestier is his mother.
They split up when Sir Lewis was young, and he spent much of his childhood living with Anthony and his step mum Linda.
Carmen has been to several of her son’s races, and she accompanied him to Windsor Castle in December when he received his knighthood.
Hamilton does not understand why women lose their surname when they marry a man, and would like to incorporate his mother’s name into his.
“I am really proud of my family’s name. My mum’s name is Larbalestier and I am just about to put that in my name,” he said.
“I don’t really fully understand the whole idea that when people get married the woman loses her name and I really want my mum’s name to continue on with the Hamilton name.”
Asked when he might be able to get the name officially changed, he revealed that it will happen “hopefully soon. We are working on it.”
Hamilton is set to partake in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix at the end of this week, and after a stuttering pre-season for the Silver Arrows, the Briton predicts that the beginning of the season will be tough.
“Bahrain is going to be tough,” he said at the Dubai Expo.
“I am really hoping that when I get on the call this evening – with my team at Brackley and Brixworth – they have found some tricks and ways to extract more from this car.”
While there are others around him and his team that look particularly impressive at present, the seven-time champion maintains that he has the best set of engineers working with him.
“There were a lot of cars that looked fast in testing. Alfa Romeo looked fast, Valtteri (Bottas) looked quick, and obviously the Red Bull looked ridiculously fast – but we are the best team,” he emphasised.