Motor racing-Triple champion Hamilton loving life in fast lane

By Alan Baldwin AUSTIN, Texas, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Lewis Hamilton's life has changed gear just as fast as the Mercedes he drives on the Formula One racetrack. This time last year he had only one world championship to his name and now he has three, a career dream come true as he pulls level with his boyhood idol, the late Brazilian great Ayrton Senna. The first Briton to take back-to-back titles, and only his country's second triple champion after Jackie Stewart in 1973, Hamilton is living life in the fast lane like never before and loving it. "It's hard to get the balance of life right but I've got a mega balance now," says the 30-year-old. "It's awesome and it couldn't be better. I'm having the most fun outside (Formula One) and the most fun inside." The United States, where Hamilton spends much of his downtime with friends from the music industry and Hollywood, was a fitting place for the first black world champion to clinch his triple crown. The multi-racial boy from an underprivileged background is now a man who keeps up with the Kardashians, hangs out with Rihanna and attends fashion shows with other regulars of the celebrity gossip pages. Happy to flaunt his millions and the trappings of success, he is also reaching out to new audiences. Only he, when asked how the sport could create more enthusiasm in urban black America, could talk about karting with black kids and describe being overtaken as "like seeing myself come by". The fierce and sometimes bitter rivalry with German team mate Nico Rosberg, who took last year's title battle right down to the final race, has been replaced by something close to dominance. Formula One's commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone, Hamilton's 84-year-old compatriot who has known most of the sport's world champions since the 1950s, could not have asked for more. FANTASTIC JOB "He does a fantastic job, a better job in my opinion outside the car than inside the car," said Ecclestone, who has criticised champions in the past for not selling the sport sufficiently to a wider public. "What he does for us, for the sport, is incredible." Hamilton, by his own admission, sticks out like a sore thumb in Formula One. He may rub shoulders with the rich and powerful, Russian President Vladimir Putin handing him a winner's trophy only two weeks ago, but nothing in his background suggested he was destined for such fame and fortune. The private jet, the garage full of luxury sportscars, the clunky gold chains and diamond ear studs are the visible rewards. But Hamilton never forgets that he grew up in social housing, sleeping on his father's sofa on a Stevenage council estate. With money tight, and his parents divorcing when he was two, father Anthony held down multiple jobs to fuel the passion for karting that his son first discovered on a low-cost family holiday to Spain. When Hamilton came home from school, he would put on a video of Senna and dream. "I wanted to be like him. I aspired to one day drive the way he drove, and achieve something similar to what he achieved," he recalled last month before equalling Senna's tally of 41 race wins. "At the time, I felt that if I could get anywhere close to doing anything similar to him I would be super-proud of myself. That is what I set my sights on all those years ago." The grandson of a Grenadian who emigrated from the West Indies to work on the London underground rail system, Hamilton owes everything to his talent -- even if Mercedes and McLaren spotted it early on and bankrolled his progress. BLACK FAMILY "Who would ever have thought it of us Hamiltons turning up at the track in the first year in karting, the only black family there?" Hamilton recalled last year when he became the most successful British driver in terms of race wins. "It was almost like everyone thought 'what are they doing here?' It was so funny. We had the crappiest little box trailer. I feel very proud." Hamilton could have taken the crown in his sensational 2007 debut season, losing out to Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen by a single point after a stormy year at McLaren, but he did it the next year to become the youngest ever champion at 23. Five seasons of frustration, albeit with plenty of wins, followed as compatriot Jenson Button triumphed for Brawn and then Sebastian Vettel took four titles in a row for Red Bull. He was once seen as over-controlled by McLaren group boss Ron Dennis, but Hamilton's move to Mercedes allowed him to become his own man, even if not everyone is a fan of his fashion sense. "Until this year, I cared what people thought and tried to live to people's own expectations rather than my own," he said in September after sporting a new dyed blond look. "But I turned 30 over the winter and I have really got to a point in my life where I am comfortable in myself...I am more at ease within my job, within my skin and with how I drive and where I stand." (Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Clare Lovell)