Yahoo Autos Lewis Hamilton Grabs 92nd F1 Win in Portugal
In Grand Prix wins, Lewis Hamilton has no equal.
Today's win, his record-setting 92nd, was slightly more difficult than most of his victories at Mercedes have been. Hamilton started from pole, but lost the lead on the start to, shockingly, McLaren's Carlos Sainz Jr., who made up six positions on the first lap of the day. Unfortunately for Sainz, McLaren had not suddenly found race-winning pace from nowhere, and Valtteri Bottas had a Mercedes back in the lead five laps later.
Light rain and tire degradation made the first 20 laps interesting, but Hamilton finally gained control at this point and, simply, never looked back. The Mercedes duo did not pit until lap 41 of a 66 lap race, by which point Hamilton had already built a lead of nearly ten seconds on his teammate. By race's end, Hamilton's lead had ballooned to nearly thirty seconds, and his win was secure.
The top four finished in perhaps the most predictable order possible, with Hamilton leading Bottas, Verstappen and Leclerc, but the race was not without its drama further back in the field. Carlos Sainz Jr. fell to just sixth after his galactic start vaulted him into an early lead, while both Racing Point entries spun early after contact with Verstappen and McLaren's Lance Stroll. Sergio Perez recovered to an impressive seventh, while Lance Stroll would be the only retirement of the race. Monza winner Pierre Gasly turned in another impressive race for AlphaTauri, finishing fifth, while the two Renaults and the second Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel rounded out the points-paying positions in eighth through tenth, respectively.
The headline of the race, however, is Hamilton. The English driver has been one of Formula 1's best from the day he got into a car, and today's race was yet another masterpiece in his record collection of race wins. Only Mercedes is currently capable of fielding a car that can challenge Mercedes, but Hamilton nonetheless found himself spending the first third of this Grand Prix challenging his sole true competitor. He got past well before the end of his first tire stint, and he spent the rest of the race building a half-minute gap on his teammate in an equal car on an effectively identical strategy. In other words, he put nearly half a second a lap on his teammate, who actually led a large chunk of the race, in race conditions.
Hamilton is the master, long since proven to be the unquestioned best of the decade and, as of this past month, now carrying the resume to argue convincingly that he could be the best ever. He leads in wins by a modest margin, but he leads in poles by a tremendous 29 and will likely hit 100 career poles before the end of the season. Even if Hamilton decided that he did not want to see what the next era of Formula 1 looks like in 2022, car update regulations for 2021 mean that he could conceivably retire at the end of next year with eight driver's championships, 100 wins, 115 poles, and the unique distinction of winning seven titles in eight years, all with one team. Hamilton and Mercedes are the controlling force of this very specific V6 turbo era that has only ever seen a Mercedes champion, but they control it by such a margin, and so convincingly, that it can be argued this is the most impressive stretch of sustained success in any code of top-level auto racing ever.
In terms of other sports, Hamilton isn't the LeBron James or Michael Jordan of Formula 1. He's the Wilt Chamberlain. He isn't putting up numbers that have to be taken into context to see that they are the most impressive ever, you don't need to watch to see just how dominant he is. All of that is clear, but, more than all of that, he is putting up such gaudy records at such an overwhelming pace that future generations will either have to increase the number of races tenfold to match them or put all future records into the context of "But it's not like it was in the 2010s, when Hamilton drove." He's not doing it against half-filled fields and part time entries from his top competitors like a Richard Petty, he is facing the best three other teams that won championships in recent memory have to offer every single week.
Simply, Lewis Hamilton is unmatched. Whether or not you think that makes him the best driver ever is up to you, but it certainly makes him the most accomplished. We do not need to wait for him to retire to say it out loud. This not the era of V6s, of DRS, or of hybrids. This is the era of the most successful driver in Formula 1 history.
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