Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes AMG-Petronas are the only two to be nominated for the prestigious Laureus Awards.
The 2019 event will take place in Monaco on February 18 with only two nominations this time from the motor racing world for the year 2018 as opposed to the five which made it in the final list for the year 2017.
Last year, Lewis Hamilton and MotoGP’s Valentino Rossi made it into the individual list, Mercedes were placed in the teams’ category while Ferrari’s gesture towards fan Danel in Spanish GP and Hamilton’s invite to Billy Monger to British GP came under ‘Moment of the Year’.
This year, it is only Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes who have been chosen from motorsport with the former being nominated under ‘World Sportsman of the Year’ category and the latter under ‘World Team of the Year’ for the year 2018.
Lewis Hamilton will face competition from Tennis player Novak Djokovic (Serbia), Basketball player Lebron James (USA), Football players Kylian Mbappe (France) & Luka Modric (Croatia) and Athlete Eliud Kipchoge (Kenya).
At the same time, Mercedes will compete against European Ryder Cup Team (Golf), France’s football team, Golden State Warriors (USA, Basketball), Norway winter Olympic team and Real Madrid (Spain, Football).
This is the fifth consecutive time that Mercedes has been nominated in the category with the first one coming in 2015. It won it for the first time last year and has a good chance this time after having won its fifth F1 world title in 2018.
Only three F1 teams have so far taken the coveted award with Renault winning it in 2006, followed by Brawn in 2010 and Mercedes in 2018. Meanwhile, for Lewis Hamilton as well, it is his fifth career nomination and he is yet to win the category.
The only racers to win the the individual award is Michael Schumacher twice in 2002 and 2004 respectively, while Sebastian Vettel took it in 2014. It remains to be seen of Lewis Hamilton can finally take it this time or not – chances are high though.
https://twitter.com/LaureusSport/status/1085902198935093250
