One lucky The Times and The Sunday Times reader will soon have the chance to sit in a Mercedes sports car for one hot lap with Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton, in conjunction with Vodafone.

The competition will be launched in The Sunday Times on November 4 as part of Vodafone Malta’s Raise Your Game initiative, which will see Hamilton race around Malta International Airport grounds for 2012’s Paqpaqli għall-Istrina fundraiser.

Hamilton was the youngest driver to win the Formula 1 championship when he clinched the title in 2008 on the last day of the season.

He continues to compete for top honours, striving for excellence with a drive that Vodafone Malta CEO Balesh Sharma yesterday insisted everyone could achieve.

“Excellence resides within everyone,” Mr Sharma said, as he enthused over Vodafone’s Hamilton coup, which will also see Hamilton’s McLaren Mercedes MP4-26 race car on display in Malta. Representatives from project partners The Times, TVM and Mercedes were all on hand to bear witness to the launch of the Vodafone initiative.

Adrian Hillman, executive director of The Times’ parent company, Allied Newspapers, noted how Vodafone’s raise-your-game tagline matched the media organisation’s continuous ambition to improve.

“We’ve had to strive to raise our game for 75 odd years,” he said.

Public Broadcasting Services CEO Anton Attard said PBS viewers could attest to the fact that the broadcaster was constantly seeking to raise its own game.

Auto Sales Ltd director Bernardette Bonnici Kind noted Mercedes and Vodafone had been working together since 1995. She described Hamilton as “raise-your-game personified”.

L-Istrina organising committee chairman Major Mark Mallia thanked all the volunteers who were making the December 9 event possible.

“The only problem is I have no idea of how to top this next year,” he joked.

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