Nicolas Hamilton Opens Up on His Struggle With Cerebral Palsy: ‘Painful 4th Birthday’

Lewis Hamilton’s brother is a racing driver. This statement alone does not stand as inspirational or out of the blue. But if you dive behind the life and struggles of Nicolas Hamilton, you will see a person who is equally as outstanding as his seven-time world champion brother — both, on and off the track.

In an interview with Sky Sports F1’s Natalie Pinkham, Hamilton revealed the early struggles he faced with Cerebral Palsy (CP). He was born two months premature meaning his brain did not get the requisite oxygen to develop in a healthy manner. Narrating an incident from his fourth birthday, Hamilton showcased just how hard it was for him to grow up with CP.

“A life-changing operation which is a tendon release when I was four years old [and] the surgeon went into the backs of my hamstrings and into my groin area and the backs of my ankles and the earliest memory is recovering from that being in plaster cast you know from my ankle to my groin and it was my fourth birthday and I remember looking down cuz I was in pain,” he revealed.

Yet, he went on to carve out a courageous racing career in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC). To put things into perspective, as a young adult dreaming of making a career out in motorsport, suffering from CP — which severely hampers the motor functions of a person — was the biggest challenge to overcome.

“There are people in my situation that have CP [and they] struggle to talk or communicate,” he explained. Even his own doctors had told Hamilton’s parents that their son would not be able to lead a normal life let alone go on to pursue his dreams of becoming a racing driver.

“They [the doctors]  said, most likely you will not walk but if I was to walk it’d be at best with some sort of aid or you know a stick or a walking frame or something,” added Hamilton.

Since then, through the support of his parents and his elder brother, Lewis, Nicolas has gone on to carve out an exceptional racing career with ‘tin-tops’. He has raced in the Renault Clio Cup and plies his trade in BTCC as a full-time driver since 2019 — scoring his first points in the 2020 season.