Lewis Hamilton is looking back on one of the most “disturbing” periods of his life.

The Formula 1 star has opened up about his childhood and memories of being bullied as one of the few black students at school.

“I think for me, school was the most traumatic, probably the hardest and most traumatic period of my life,” Hamilton, a seven-time F1 champion, told Shetty. “I was bullied from the age of six.”

“Constant jabs, things thrown at you like bananas or people using the N-word just to be cool,” he said. “People calling you half-assed and, you know, not really knowing where you fit in. For me, that was tough. When you go into history class and everything you learn in history, there’s no image of people of colour in the history that they teach us.”

Hamilton is considered one of the best (if not the best) F1 drivers of all time and is currently tied with former driver Michael Schumacher for the most F1 titles.

The Briton is the only black driver in F1, and the first in the organisation’s decades-long history.

Speaking to Shetty, Hamilton said he soon realised he was often discriminated against because of his skin colour. He also revealed that he suffers from dyslexia.

“I was like, oh, where are the people who look like me?” the Mercedes-Petronas driver said. “And I mean, for me, at my school, there were only, I think, seven, maybe six, seven black kids out of 1,200 kids, and three of us were taken outside the headteacher’s office all the time.”

“The headteacher just wanted us, and me in particular, I mean, to kind of sort of deal with all the different emotions that you’re feeling,” he explained. “Plus, I struggled in school. I didn’t find out until I was 16 that I was dyslexic. Luckily, I met a teacher who really cared and put me on that path and helped me discover a little more about myself and how I could improve myself through education.”

According to the Mayo Clinic, dyslexia is a disorder that involves difficulty reading and is caused by problems identifying speech sounds and understanding how they connect to letters and words.

Ultimately, Hamilton says, racing allowed him to “channel” the frustrations he felt into other aspects of his life.

“I really felt like the system was really stacked against me, and I was swimming against the tide,” he recalls. “But I’m so grateful for that journey, because it’s what built me ​​[into] the person I am today.”

“I didn’t want my dad to think that I wasn’t strong,” Hamilton says of suppressing his emotions at the time. “And so I would, you know, if I had tears, I would hold them in. If I had emotions, I would stay in a quiet place. And it wasn’t until I started racing that I was able to channel those emotions into my driving.”