LEWIS Hamilton’s triumph at the 2020 Portuguese Grand Prix has secured the Mercedes driver his 92nd Grand Prix victory, eclipsing the previous record of 91 wins held by Michael Schumacher since the 2006 Chinese Grand Prix.
Victory in Portugal has also given Hamilton a 77-point lead over teammate Valtteri Bottas in the World Championship for Drivers, and it seems almost certain that the British driver will now match the seven World Championship titles which statistically marked Schumacher out as the most successful driver in Formula 1 history.
Hamilton’s rise to success started in 2007 when he made his Grand Prix debut for McLaren-Mercedes, finishing on the podium in his first nine Grands Prix and winning his sixth Formula 1 race, the Canadian Grand Prix. He would finish second in the World Championship at his first attempt, only one point behind Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen and on equal points with teammate Fernando Alonso.
In 2008 Hamilton won his first World Championship at a dramatic Brazilian Grand Prix in which he finished fifth, scoring enough points to beat Ferrari’s Felipe Massa who had won the race and – for a few seconds – thought he had won the title.
For the next four seasons, from 2009 until 2012, Hamilton would continue to win races but a lack of consistency caused by poor car performance and reliability issues meant that he never finished in the top three in the World Championship during that time. When he suffered five retirements in his final year with McLaren he was approached by Niki Lauda to join the Mercedes team. In doing so he replaced Michael Schumacher, who had initially retired from Formula 1 at the end of 2006 but then returned to partner Nico Rosberg at Mercedes from 2010-2012.
Although Hamilton won only one race in his first year with Mercedes, at the 2013 Hungarian Grand Prix, 2014 saw the arrival of Formula 1’s new hybrid engine regulations. Mercedes was immediately dominant thanks to its innovative and highly efficient petrol-electric power unit. Hamilton won 11 races that year, the most that he has won in any season so far and claimed his second World Championship title.
After winning again in 2015, Hamilton faced a strong challenge from teammate Rosberg in 2016, an engine failure in Malaysia resulting in a critical victory for his teammate. Rosberg would ultimately win the title by five points and immediately retire from the sport.
In common with Schumacher, Hamilton has won all his World Championship races and titles with two teams, McLaren and Mercedes. Although Schumacher made his Formula 1 debut for Jordan Grand Prix in Belgium in 1991, he immediately joined the Benetton team with which he won his first two World Championship titles in 1994 and 1995. He then joined Ferrari, and after four years battling against the Williams and McLaren teams, finally secured his third title in 2000. He would go on to secure five back-to-back victories in the World Championship from 2000 through to 2004.
92 wins
But not the only all-time F1 record for @LewisHamilton #F1 pic.twitter.com/EiiR3Xpiqk
— Formula 1 (@F1) October 26, 2020
Mika Hakkinen was Schumacher’s arch-rival during the late 1990s and enjoyed memorable battles with the German star en route to his World Championship titles in 1998 and 1999. Hakkinen’s McLaren-Mercedes cars were inevitably to be seen wheel-to-wheel with the leading Ferrari, and in 2000 the Finnish ace witnessed first-hand the start of Schumacher’s dominant period in Formula 1.
“There are a lot of similarities between Lewis and Michael in their ability to sustain a high level of performance for year after year and to surround themselves with a very talented team of people,” says Mika. “Winning in Formula 1 is all about having everything just right – a good car with a powerful engine, tyres that give you optimum performance, good aerodynamics and a chassis that allows you to push to the maximum. The technical challenge is intense, but if you find a group of people who can give you the right car then the job is down to you as the driver. To find the right level of focus and commitment, and to able to repeat that from one race to another”.
“Michael was a formidable competitor, a hard racer who was always driving at the maximum level. Lewis is the same, and aside from the fact they both have natural talent I think they also have a certain hunger for success that means they keep working hard all the time. One of the things that I realised was how much energy you have to put into winning, and the moment you win one race you have to find that same level again next weekend, and the weekend after that. This is not an easy thing to do, and while I was able to win Grands Prix for the five years before I retired, I recognise and appreciate that Michael and Lewis have found a way to sustain that focus for more than a decade.”
“Naturally it helps when your team is competitive and the car is quick, but both Michael and Lewis have had periods in their career where the success was not so easy and I think that helped them to work even harder.”
“Of course there are many more races these days, with up to 22 events per season, which means drivers have more opportunity to win, plus the reliability of the cars today is really amazing. In simple terms, race retirements due to a technical issue are now very rare, whereas back in the 1990s it was quite common.”
“None of that changes the fact that Lewis knows how to deliver success for himself and the team, and I have no doubt that he will continue to build more records. If he re-signs for Mercedes for two or three years, as we expect, Michael’s record seven World Championship titles will come under threat, and I will not be surprised to see Lewis reach 100 Grand Prix wins or more.”
The next round of the Formula 1 World Championship will be held in Imola, Italy, on Sunday November 1.
