2020 might have been the strangest year in the history of Formula 1, but it’s also been a record-breaking year for British driver Lewis Hamilton. As races have gone by and he’s picked up win after win, he’s left shattered records in his wake. He’s claimed more pole positions than any other Formula 1 driver in history. He’s won more races than any other Formula 1 driver in history. Now, with the Turkish Grand Prix complete and with Hamilton having claimed an astonishing win from a sixth-place start on the grid, he’s finally equaled the legendary German driver Michael Schumacher by claiming his seventh world championship. As he’s level with Schumacher on world championships and ahead of him in every other statistic that might be used to define success, is it time to recognize Hamilton as the greatest in the seventy-year history of the sport?
This is a contentious question, and there’s no easy answer that will please everybody. To some, Michael Schumacher will always be the best, no matter what Hamilton goes on to achieve. To others, the honor ought to go to Argentinian Juan Manuel Fangio, who dominated Formula 1 during the 1950s, or Ayrton Senna, the Brazilian driver who tragically lost his life during a race in 1994 after winning the world championship three times in the previous six seasons. Frenchman Alain Prost ought to be in the conversation too, as should Hamilton’s great rival Sebastian Vettel. All of them deserve respect, but should any of them realistically be viewed as superior to Hamilton?
Hamilton has his critics, and always will. Many are quick to point out that the Mercedes Hamilton drives is superior to every other car on the track, and that the car does half the work for him. That’s not necessarily fair. Formula 1 doesn’t work like the “F1 racing” game that you’ll find on online slots websites, where results occur randomly, and symbols retain their value in all circumstances. There’s no human element when it comes to playtech casino – you just press the ‘spin’ button and wait for an outcome that you have no control over. No online slots player is any better at a game than any other because skill isn’t involved. If all things were equal, Hamilton’s teammate Valtteri Bottas would be every bit as successful as Hamilton. He isn’t, because Hamilton gets so much more out of the car. The sensational race in Turkey highlighted that perhaps more than any other in history, as a struggling Bottas finished fourteenth.
As we look at Hamilton’s rivals for the title of ‘greatest ever,’ the first contender we can rule out is Sebastian Vettel. Vettel won all four of his world championships driving for Red Bull during a time when Hamilton was still a rookie, and the Red Bull was a vastly superior car. Vettel moved to Ferrari in a big-money deal that was designed to help the Italian team end their long wait for a world champion, but he never won the title again. He and Hamilton have been racing head to head for years now, and Hamilton has come out on top every time. Even the German knows his place in the pecking order; he was the first to congratulate the Brit at the end of the race in Turkey.
Alain Prost is another who was great but not the greatest. He’s also another driver who struggled at Ferrari. Prost won three of his world championships driving for McLaren during the 1980s, then spent two barren years at Ferrari before leaving for Williams, where he immediately won his fourth. He was undoubtedly an incredible driver, but his career was defined not by his four world championships but his long rivalry with Ayrton Senna. The two men pushed each other to greater heights in their fierce personal contest, and neither might have been quite so successful if the other weren’t there to motivate them. Prost acknowledged this after Senna’s death in 1994, saying that his rival had played such a significant role in his life that he felt that part of him died that day, too.
Ayrton Senna’s legacy is difficult to judge. He was 34 at the time of his death – younger than Hamilton is now – and might have gone on to win more world championships. That being said, he hadn’t won the world championship since 1991 and had admitted that he lost some of his love for motorsport after Alain Prost retired in 1993. Senna’s legacy in Formula 1 is huge, and there are many who feel he was the best of all time. A poll of F1 drivers in 2009 gave him that unofficial accolade, but Hamilton only had one world championship back then as opposed to the seven he has today. Ask the question on the grid again today, and you might find that you’ll get a different answer. Senna is a hero in Brazil and a legend of the sport, but the sentimentality that surrounds his tragic death sometimes persuades people that he was better than he really was.
Michael Schumacher was as close to the perfect driver as anybody thought it was possible to be before Hamilton came along. The peerless German dominated the sport for the first few years of the 21st century, winning five consecutive world championships to go with the two he won in the mid-1990s. Cool under pressure, and imbued with a ruthless streak that saw him ram his rival Damon Hill off the road to secure the world championship in 1994, Schumacher tore up the record books during his dominance of the sport. Many assumed that his records would stand forever, but they reckoned without the emergence of Hamilton, who won his first world championship a mere three years after Schumacher won his last. Schumacher’s Ferrari was every bit as dominant as Hamilton’s Mercedes is today, so the argument about being assisted by the car they drove can be applied to both of them.
We won’t argue for or against Juan Manuel Fangio because motorsport is, in almost every conceivable way, far more complicated and advanced than it was during the 1950s. The cars are faster and more complicated to drive, and the tracks are more demanding. Fangio was the undisputed king of his era, but trying to compare him to the drivers of the 1990s and beyond is comparing apples to oranges. That leaves Hamilton standing alone, marked as the greatest of all time by his victories and achievements. Knowing Hamilton’s ambition, though, is tied with Schumacher won’t be enough for him. He won’t rest until he secures an eight world championship and stands alone at the top of the mountain.
