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Young Peterborough karting sensation Callum Bowyer took to the same stage as recently-crowned Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton as he accepted his prize for a superb season that saw him achieve three major national titles.

Callum triumphed in the Mini Max class of Super 1, BRDC Stars of Tomorrow – the same series that set Hamilton on the fast track to the heady heights where he now finds himself – and the prestigious ‘0’ Plate in 2008, thereby accomplishing the rare feat of a triple crown of the UK’s top karting laurels.

As a reward for his outstanding success, the 14-year-old was invited to the glitzy and glamorous annual Autosport Awards, held in the auspicious surroundings of London’s Grosvenor Park Hotel on Park Lane and attended by such luminaries as Hamilton, McLaren-Mercedes F1 team-mate Heikki Kovalainen and fellow British grand prix winners Jenson Button and the legendary Sir Stirling Moss. It was, the star-struck Gunthorpe teenager admitted, quite on occasion.

“I had seen it on TV before,” Callum related, “but to be there and up close only a couple of feet from the stage was just an awesome experience.

“I had never thought I would actually be there myself. At the start of the year of course you know you want to be there and have the chance to meet Lewis Hamilton, but you put it out of your mind as the season progresses and just focus on all the hard work you need to put in to get there. You get so involved in it all, and then finally all the glory is there at the end.

“It was a brilliant night! All the Stars winners went up first and had our trophies presented to us by David Coulthard. It was the first time I’d met people like him, and I was just mesmerised by the whole evening!”

The undoubted highlight of the awards for the Ken Stimpson School pupil, however, was the moment he got the opportunity to talk to his racing hero Hamilton – a driver who tore up all of the sport’s history books during the course of his record-breaking maiden campaign in the top flight in 2007, before going one better second time around to clinch the honours.

“I went up and introduced myself to Lewis and had a chat with him,” Callum explained. “I knew he was going to be there and I really wanted to have the chance to speak to him, but there were so many people there that I never really thought I would get near him.

“I congratulated him on his world championship, and he then said ‘that’s enough about me’ and was really interested in what I’ve done and what I’m going to do and what class I’m moving up to next year. He gave me a few tips and told me to keep on working hard at school.

“I even joked with Lewis that I’d be in his car one day, and he said that was ok as long as I don’t beat him! He wasn’t big-headed at all; he was just a really nice guy.”

The budding F1 star also got chance to speak briefly to Ron Dennis, though he confessed that he had resisted the urge to ‘do a Hamilton’ and ask for the McLaren team principal’s telephone number…

“I told him well done for this year and good luck for next,” Callum said, “and he looked at my silverware and said ‘you haven’t done so badly yourself’.”

He hasn’t indeed, and the newly-signed, Intrepid JKH factory driver’s first time at the awards assuredly won’t be his last. For now, though, he has other matters on his mind, as he prepares to make his competitive debut in the KF3 class to which he will graduate in 2009 at Rowrah up in the Lake District this weekend.

“I’ve been out quite a few times in the kart now,” he stated, “and I’m definitely getting to grips with it a lot better. In the wet at PF International we were matching the times set by Jake Dennis, who is really good and won the championship in Stars, and in the dry we were arguably a little bit quicker than him – and we’ve only been out in it five times still.

“We are going to Rowrah for the winter series there, and I’m looking forward to getting stuck in. I’m really up for it!”

For the second year in succession, Callum has also been nominated for Peterborough Junior Sportsman of the Year in the 2008 Evening Telegraph Sports Awards. You can vote for him by texting PETSAWARDS BOWYER JSM to 81800 before 2pm on January 16, with a limit of five votes per ‘phone.