Here’s an undervalued truth about the knight, Lewis Hamilton – The seven-time world champion is arguably the face of Formula One and is part of the reason why the sport has embraced such extraordinary growth in popularity. The Mercedes star has garnered a massive fan following in recent years and has delivered enough nail-biting on-track actions to flare up the viewership count.

Indeed, the jackpot arrived at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last year, where Hamilton and his arch-rival, Max Verstappen, battled for the world championship title to the finish line. To this day, the highlights video of the 2021 Abu Dhabi GP has reaped over 20 million views on YouTube. There are more such instances, including the 2021 Italian GP, 2021 Brazilian GP, 2016 Abu Dhabi GP, etc.

However, here’s something interesting! Hamilton’s impact on the growth of F1 started way earlier than that. It was back in his rookie year that the Briton played a pivotal role in increasing the sport’s revenue.

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The 2007 F1 season was one of those diabolical seasons with three drivers, Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Raikkonen, and Fernando Alonso, vying for the one big trophy. Yes, the Ferrari of Raikkonen eventually came out on top but it was Hamilton’s fabulous debut that stood out as the reason behind the surge in views.

How Lewis Hamilton boosted F1 popularity in his rookie year

Hamilton, not only fought with his life for the title but also engaged in a controversy-ridden rivalry with his then teammate, Alonso. Consequently, almost every race had a twist in it which kept the viewers glued to their seats. And, in the end, the results said it all!

The season finale in Brazil witnessed the average viewers per race make a steep 40% increase to 3.3 million (compared with 2006 stats). But, that’s not it, as ITV further revealed that they managed to garner an additional $14.5 million from ad revenue. Hence, ITV eventually doubled the cost of sponsoring its coverage to around $6 million per year.

But wait, there’s more. The 2007 British Grand Prix pulled in 1.7 million more viewers than it did in 2006. This “Hamilton effect” meant that every advertizer taking a spot at a Grand Prix event would have had to pay $240,000 more than they did over the previous year. Such was the kind of impact Hamilton had on the sport in his very first F1 season.

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Fast-forward 15 years to 2022, the British legend is still pulling in fans effortlessly and has undeniably played a hefty role in the financial aspect of Formula One. Hence, now, the biggest question is, how big of a blow will F1 have to cope with when the Mercedes star decides to hang his boots?