Lewis Hamilton reflects on his 100th F1 win – creating a record – as he adds on the long wait from his 99th at Silverstone.
Mercedes’ Hamilton set a new F1 record this past weekend in Russian GP when he saw the chequered flag in first place. He became a centurion in terms of race wins, becoming the first to do so, having surpassed the previous Michael Schumacher’s record of 91 wins.
He equaled that record in 2020 Emilia Romagna GP and surpassed it in the following Portuguese GP event. But it took him 14 races to reach the figure of 99 and further five races to eventually get the 100th F1 victory – a feat which will take some beating.
The next best is Sebastian Vettel with 53 against his name, while the only other current driver in the Top 10 is Fernando Alonso with 32 wins. Reflecting back onto the 100th F1 win, Hamilton was in awe of the moment as he thanked his support system.
“It’s a magical moment,” said Hamilton. “I could only ever have dreamed of still being here and having this opportunity to win these races and get to drive against such phenomenal talent this late in my career and to continue to building with Mercedes, of which I’m so proud of everything we’ve done, not only on track but also off and yeah, this is just a special moment for everyone that has been a part of it. I’ve had the most incredible team.
“Back home in my little personal team at Project 44 and then obviously you’ve got Angela, you’ve got Ellen, you’ve got Omar my driver, you’ve got Lloyd who’s here with me, my security. Honestly there are too many to name, but ones that have been with me since 18 years. Just forever grateful to them for their continued support and belief in me. To my parents also.
“My dad… Even on Saturday night, just the same as the first race I had or the first championship I fought in when I was eight, my dad messaging or called me and he has always been that one reassuring me and continuing to support me, so yeah. And as I said, there were moments where you didn’t even know that if it was going to happen. So, I feel incredibly grateful for the amazing support I have had. Especially to Team LH. I couldn’t have done it without them,” summed up Hamilton.
Elaborating more on the five races gap to actually taking the feat, Hamilton reiterated that he didn’t think as much of the 100 number. Getting the 99th at Silverstone was already something magical in front of his home crowd.
“Honestly, since Silverstone, that was such a special moment for me, to be in front of the home crowd obviously and obviously it was the first time that they’d been back so… but I haven’t thought of… definitely not through my break, I don’t really think about racing, I try to think about other things,” said Hamilton.
“The last thing you want to be thinking about is racing but of course since we’ve come back, hoping to get a good result at some point but they came out of the starting box and winning every race generally, and then obviously the difficult race we had last… so yeah, I didn’t know when it would happen or…
“I knew that it would be difficult, just in terms of the pace that we have. It’s good but it’s not exceptional and so we definitely have work still to do and I’m hopeful that we can try out and squeeze out maybe a little bit more performance in these next races. I hope, fingers crossed,” summed up Hamilton.
Here’s F1 on 100 wins for Lewis Hamilton: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.history-maker-lewis-hamilton-first-driver-to-reach-100-formula-1-wins.1711971463298236247.html
Here’s Lewis Hamilton, Toto Wolff on their race
