Hamilton poised to beat Schumacher’s wins record as well as winning rate

2020 Tuscan Grand Prix Ferrari 1000 stats and facts

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When Michael Schumacher scored his 90th career victory at Monza in 2006, he marked the occasion by announcing his retirement.

Lewis Hamilton did not declare his intention to retire after becoming the second driver in Formula 1 history to reach 90 wins yesterday, and can now equal Schumacher’s all-time record of 91 wins by the end of the month.

While Hamilton remains yet to confirm his plans beyond the end of the 2020 F1 season, he has at least eight more races this year to surpass Schumacher’s record.

So whenever Hamilton chooses to end his career, there’s a strong chance he’ll have won more races than Schumacher by then. He’ll most likely have a better winning rate too as he’s already ahead by 34.7% to 29.7%.

It would take a strange turn of events for him to end his career with a worse one. Hamilton would need to fail to win the next 45 races in a row, then retire (likely at the end of 2022), to leave F1 with a lower winning rate than Schumacher.

Hamilton has won 25 of his last 45 starts, so that doesn’t seem likely. Unless, of course, he does what Schumacher did, and end his career with three win-less seasons (after reversing his original retirement decision).

The record winning rate is not held by Schumacher, however. To beat that, Hamilton would need to go on a serious winning streak.

Michael Schumacher, Jean Todt, Ferrari, Monza, 2006
Schumacher scored his 90th win at Monza
Lee Wallard only started two world championship races and won one of them. To beat his 50% winning rate, Hamilton would have to win the next 80 races in a row (the current record for which is nine, held by Sebastian Vettel and Alberto Ascari). Even then, it’s doubtful there would be anyone left watching the sport to take notice of his achievement.

If we ignore Wallard on the grounds that his two starts were in the Indianapolis 500 which were not run to F1 rules, Hamilton’s next target is Juan Manuel Fangio’s 47.06% winning rate, achieved with 24 wins from 51 starts. To beat that, Hamilton ‘only’ needs to win the next 61 races.

Hamilton also notched up his 51st fastest lap (26 shy of Schumacher’s record) and 95th pole position. He took his 222nd points finish, which is a record, but as ever with these records it’s skewed by changes to the points system over the years. In most of Hamilton’s starts the top 10 drivers scored points, while previous record-holder Schumacher could only score points for top-six or top-eight finishes in most races he started.

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Alexander Albon finally scored the podium finish he’s been threatening to take since Brazil last year. He is the first Thai driver ever to stand on the podium, and the 29th different nationality in the history of Formula 1.

Alexander Albon, Red Bull, Mugello, 2020
Albon made his first visit to the podium
So far this year 15 different drivers have run inside the top three places. They include Nico Hulkenberg, who only started two races, but not Vettel.

Hanoi should have been the 75th different circuit to hold a round of the world championship, but the disruption to the calendar meant that honour fell to Mugello instead. We’ll have another new venue before the end of the year as well – Autodromo do Algarve – so Hanoi will likely be the 77th new circuit.

The ‘Tuscan Grand Prix’ is also the third different race title this year, with three more to come: Eifel, Emilia-Romagna and Sakhir.

The race held the unusual distinction of having three separate standings starts. This has only happened twice before in F1 history. The 1987 Austrian Grand Prix and the 1990 Belgian Grand Prix were also red-flagged and restarted from the grid twice.

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2020 Tuscan Grand Prix Ferrari 1000

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    126 comments on “Hamilton poised to beat Schumacher’s wins record as well as winning rate”

    1. Does anyone think its time the Indianapolis 500 results were purged from the FORMULA One, World championship records??

      Surely indycar includes them in their own records as well??

      1. Only if the results did not count towards the Formula One championship. If they did, there would be no reason to exclude them from the archives.

        1. Weren’t there a couple of years where the “World Championship” was run in F2 instead of F1 too?

          if you really want to complicate things further, Should you include non-F1 rounds of the world championship or exclude F1 races that were not part of the world championship.

          1. @lancer033 I think the “F2” years are fine to keep. it was more a case of F1 adopting F2 regulations, so it was still F1 in a sense. they could do that today and it would still be F1. back in the day (mid to late 1960s) they also had F2 cars join the grid for certain races – I think jacky ickx raced an F2 car very high up the field at the old nurburgring on more than one occasion. I presume he was eligible to score points.

            I think the old indy records are ok to keep – they are an interesting little anomaly in the history of the sport. The reason they were there was to make it a true ‘world’ championship because without that race, most of the early seasons would have been europe-only affairs, which is a bit lame.

    2. I don’t think you can really take the second career into account when looking at Schumacher’s win percentage.

      It’s like Hamilton staying out of the sport for three years, coming back at 40 to drive for a brand new team like Aston Martin.

      Not to mention that Schumacher never got the best car on the grid until 2001 a full decade after debuting. Until then he was always at a disadvantage in terms of machinery on balance over an entire season.

      If Alonso flops in his comeback I’m not going to hold it against him or let it affect his legacy.

      Schumacher scored his 75th win in his 200th race which is absolutely incredible.

      He never had the kind of car dominance that Hamilton has had.

      1. Yeah but he had very good cars and total focus from his teams from 1992 to 2006.
        What Verstappen is having today, he was having 25 years ago. If Red Bull manages to build a winner, than Verstappen will dominate with no resistance from his team mate, just like it happened with Schumacher starting 2001.

        While Hamilton lost a WDC to a team mate, Schumacher wouldn’t even allow that situation to happen.

        The fact is that nobody would achieve these absurd numbers racing ordinary cars with strong competition. Very special circunstances are needed for this to happen.

        1. Benetton’s were not “very good” cars they were always inferior to the Williams.

          When he went to Ferrari they were a complete shambles.

          He went to two teams and took them from nowhere to championship winning machines.

          Schumacher was by far the best driver in the field. No teammate was ever going to beat him over the course of an entire season.

          When Barrichello went to Ferrari a lot of people thought Barrichello would finally be the teammate that would take it to Schumacher. He had some amazing performances for Jordan and later Stewart. Ferrari would have stuck with Irvine if they didn’t want someone challenging Schumacher, but instead went with the highly regarded Barrichello.

          Schumacher wiped the floor with him in the end.

          Early to mid 90’s I think Schumacher went four seasons without getting beaten by a teammate in qualifying.

          1. Benettons were so not “very good” that even drivers that could not get to grips with it at all scored a lot of podiums with it after he left and would win races as well if not for reliability issues.

            And nobody in the world expected Barrichello to take the fight to Schumacher man.
            In the first year already, he was being told to hold station and not challenge for the win when the situation happened, in Canada.

            He did a way better job overall than Irvine and that’s why they hired him.

            And Verstappen also isn’t beaten in qualy by a team mate in a long time, so what? You can explain that the same way you can explain with Schumacher in the 90’s.

            Fact is : never had a team mate to race him and put pressure on him. Of course his numbers against team mates will be absurd.

            1. How many wins did Benetton have after Schumacher left?

              Schumacher had a brake problem and had built a 30 second gap on Barrichello before that happened.

              Logical to let Schumacher take the win when you have missed the championship by the skin of your teeth for three years in a row.

              Schumacher had “bad” teammates because he destroyed them. If he performed less well against them they would be considered “good” teammates. Get it?

            2. Oh yes, he destroyed his team mates, just like in Austria 2002, in the beginning of may with a dozen races yet to happen, he won that race with a fantastic overtake in the finishing line, right?

              I think you’re fooling me, or you’re on the younger side. This can’t be serious.

            3. What’s with constantly bringing up Austria 2002?

              If you want to use Austria 2002 to diminsh Schumacher then we have to diminish Hamilton for Russia 2018.

              At least Schumacher repaid the win to Barrichello at Indy 2002.

              Hamilton is yet to repay the win to Bottas.

              Don’t forget how many times Bottas has been dudded on strategy so to not compete with Hamilton.

            4. How many wins did Benetton have after Schumacher left?

              Which people were still at Benetton then?

              All the key people and best mechanics moved to Ferrari!

            5. Well.. Not for 96, Brawn was still around, as was Byrne and a lot of key-staff did not move up until after 96. So they should at least have won more in 96.

            6. “Schumacher repaid the win to Barrichello at Indy 2002” What???
              They did a mistake!!! Michael misjudged where Rubens was and the brazilian accelerated a little more that he should did! It’s well known

          2. @David Bondo. Massa is the strongest teammate Schumi have ever face for 1 season only. Massa have face both prime Schumi and Alonso. Now we can do parallel analyze Alonso vs Massa vs Schumi. Alonso crushing Massa on his Ferrari years more than Schumi did before. Alonso is better driver than Schumi as he managed to end Schumi era. Massa even managed to school Schumi on new f1 circuit at some occasions.

            1. Massa always did well in Turkey. What new circuits are you talking about?

            2. Haa….haa… how can you said Massa did well in Turkey if Turkey on it inaugural at that year in F1? as I said Alonso beaten Massa and Button beaten Ruben more than Schumi did before.

      2. I don’t think you can really take the second career into account when looking at Schumacher’s win percentage.

        Fully agree, nor his drives at the beginning of his career in an inferior car.
        I even think you shouldn’t include any race where he didn’t win.

        Same for Gasly BTW.

        1. No-one looks at Michael Jordan’s comeback with Washington and holds it against him. Peyton Manning fails with Tampa Bay no-one will hold it against him.

          1. You mean Tom Brady?

          2. What do you mean by “holding it against him”? Of course, all know that he was an aging player then. He was not the same athlete that won those titles with Chicago.

            In boxing, Ali came back after 3 years in 1970, and he had some of his greatest fights then (Frazier three times, Foreman once). That is considered part of his legacy. After he retired, he came back in 1981 and got pummeled by Trevor Berbick. He was well past his prime. However, that fight is in the loss column in the archives. Boxing did not discard it because Ali was an aging athlete.

            You cannot erase history, which is what you are trying to do.
            Schumacher’s third place finish within those 3 seasons is in the books. Do you discard it?

            Finally, it is my belief that you would be the first one to praise Schumacher if those three seasons with Mercedes had been more stellar.

            If age is what you consider the problem, consider Fangio’s age when he won his last WDC.

            1. @emerckx

              If age is what you consider the problem, consider Fangio’s age when he won his last WDC.

              Honestly, the fact that an overweight 46 year old was able to dominate the sport suggests that Formula 1 in the 1950s wasn’t very competitive to begin with.

              That’s one of the main reasons why I struggle to rate the likes of Fangio, Moss and Clark in the discussion of all-time greats. The competition in the 1950s was much lower than it was today.

              It’s like when people consider Pele the GOAT for scoring 1000 goals against a bunch of farmers.

      3. I am assuming you would count it if he would have come back and won everything like before? Ridiculous statement because it was his own arrogance that brought him back. The second career counts even more in my opinion and show how much the cheating helped him in his first.

      4. So could you explain why Lauda’s second career should not count, and why we have to dismiss his wins and last WDC.

      5. The Mercedes was a good car, they were just hurt by their tyre management.
        Even when Hamilton joined before the hybrid era, they were fast but fragile with their tyres.
        It is something that still occasionally hurts them till this day.

      6. Niki Lauda and Kimi Raikkonen had “second careers” in winning cars and won. Schumacher had a second career amd he had a winning car.

        Michael made a concious decision to come back to the sport because he thought he could win another WDC so why cherry pick things as you see fit?

        1. It’s ridiculous including Schumacher’s comeback stint in his 40’s.

          If he never came back he’d be regarded as a better driver.

          All that he showed was that he didn’t have the longevity to drive at the same level in his 40’s.

          Raikkonen came back to F1 in his prime. Schumacher came back a good 6-7 years past his prime.

          Lauda drove in an era where drivers were generally older.

          1. You’re only saying this because he didn’t achieve anything other than make his stats look worse.

            If he came back resuming where he left off in ’06, then it would count, right?

            Well, that’s the price to take the risk. He came back, didn’t do a thing, looked terrible, gave up. And that all counts.

          2. David Bondo I remember when people were saying they felt sorry for Rosberg, because his career would be over after being teamed up with Schumacher. Schumacher would be fighting for the wins and maybe a WDC. Rosberg could bring him coffee.

            Then Rosberg destroyed Schumacher the first season and the excuses came, “yeah no one expected him to win since he’s old” or “but the car doesn’t suit him yet, next season he’ll have the car designed to match his driving style and he will be fighting for the wins and maybe a WDC. Rosberg can bring him coffee”

            rinse and repeat

          3. Schumacher chose to come back and damage his record after he was past it, that was his choice and the records shouldn’t be rewritten for his poor decision. Secondly, Schumacher tainted his own reputation many times over his career with cheating and bad sportsmanship so I’m glad his all time records are falling fast.

          4. The only thing that’s ridiculous is you wanting to ignore part of Schumacher’s career because it’s “inconvenient” to your narrative.

    3. Hamilton also notched up his 51st pole position (26 shy of Schumacher’s record) and 95th pole position./blockquote>
      I take it you meant to write that Hamilton notched up his 51st fastest lap? Because that would fit his tally.

      1. I guess that is what it was to be. Ironically Hamilton hasn’t gone for fastest laps after victory was assured. It is only now that points are being awarded they he seems to actively pursue it when he and the team are in agreement.

    4. The podium finishers in Monza all retired in this race in the same order as their previous finish. I don’t think this ever happened before…

      1. Yeah, first time since the 2001 United States Grand Prix that the all the podium finishers from the previous race all retired (although Barrichello was classified in Indy that day). The last time all the podium finishers from the previous race were not classified is a race that was mentioned a lot last week – the 1996 Monaco Grand Prix.

        1. Actually, last time all podium finishers from the previous race weren’t classified was Britain 1997.

    5. When was the last time there were 8 or more retirements (2014 Australia maybe?)

      1. @qeki The Austrian GP race 1. 11 drivers reached the chequered flag.

        1. Though 13 were classified – only 7 considered as DNFs

          1. @talcumpowder Yes, but the point is about the number of drivers that didn’t make it to the end. The 90% race distance rule is something that shouldm’t really exist anymore, but I don’t care about that. Everyone who doesn’t reach the chequered flag has technically DNF’d irrespective of the distance driven beforehand.

        2. @jerejj I remembered the season opener would have had more finishers but thanks for reminding me!

      2. Singapore 2017 (though technically in Austria 2020, 9 drivers failed to reach the chequered flag, though 2 were classified).

    6. Soon we. Can discuss how Hamilton is the greatest ever, kinda like LeBron, Jordan debate.

      Schumacher will need to release a Netflix series to shut down naysayers.

      1. Call it “The last prance.”

    7. The major difference is that Hamilton has done all of this without cheating or running anyone off the road.

      1. 2007 season (though it was the team that cheated), Australia 2009.
        A few times he seemed to run Rosberg off the road, in USA 2015 and at least once in Canada.
        Though at least I don’t believe he’s ever intentionally collided with another driver.

        1. Yeah, chopped Rosberg Bahrain 2014. If Rosberg didn’t jump on the brakes at the last moment Hamilton would have ripped the front of Rosberg’s car. Chopped Ricciardo Monaco 2016 and cut a chicane but no penalty but still broke the rules to win. Also, posted teammate’s telemetry on social media to destabilise him.

          1. Button has since come out to state that it was only simulation data that was posted and it was totally irrelevant. They just made a big deal out of it but he now claims it was totally irrelevant.
            Withmarsh just seemed to have brought out the worst in Button.

          2. There was nothing wrong with Hamilton taking the racing line. It’s just dumb from Rosberg to try and stay alongside through a corner. He didn’t do that when other drivers were next to him. Only when Hamilton was.

            1. Dumb?!? Well, then HAM is dumb for trying to stay alongside ALB in Austria! Also, didn’t know the corners use some other rules compared to the straight parts of a track. I mean, if you push somebody off-track, then you pushed somebody off-track…. no matter if it’s a straight or a corner.

            2. @mg198 Hamilton was on the inside and Albon had plenty room on the outside. Yet he chose to cut in and drove over Hamilton’s front wheel. Clumsy.

              Albon had the right to the racing line there, so that’s why Hamilton was penalized, but either way it was clumsy from Albon to not give Hamilton some more space and take the easy pass. Just like he crashed with several other drivers in a similar move.

              Also, didn’t know the corners use some other rules compared to the straight parts of a track.

              OK, then please refrain from posting nonsense about “pushing off track” when you don’t even know the rules.

        2. To be fair, Rosberg gave as good as he got! Robust but fair is how I would describe their racing together.

          1. agree with that.

      2. @darryn
        On the flip side, Schumacher did it with vastly inferior cars to the ones Hamilton drove.

        1. @kingshark No he didn’t

          1. @f1osaurus
            Schumacher only had dominant cars in 2002 and 2004

            Hamilton in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2020.

            That’s quite literally double the number of seasons in a dominant car

            1. @kingshark Schumacher had a dominant car for much more seasons: 1995, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004.
              Plus he had a team mate that was not allowed to attack. So even a less dominant car is then enough so that adds 1994 too.

              Hamilton’s car broke down a lot in 2016. So no. But sure for 2014, 2015 and 2020 he did have a dominant car.

            2. @f1osaurus
              1995 – Williams was the best car with 12/17 pole positions. Schumacher simply schooled them on Sunday.

              2000 – McLaren and Ferrari were dead even. This is honestly the first time I have ever heard anyone call the F1-2000 dominant?

              2001 – Ferrari was the best car but only by a small margin. DC beat Rubens that year. I would liken the ’01 Ferrari to the 2019 Mercedes

              2002 and 2004 are the only dominant cars of Schumacher’s career. Hamilton had double as many dominant cars as Schumacher.

    8. If you take away or add times, dates and any other relevant information that can skew the facts you too can make your driver the best statistically speaking. Just add a garnish of ill-informed opinions and you may even convince yourself you are right.

    9. The second consecutive DNF for both Max Verstappen and Kevin Magnussen. Also, the second race this season in which 12 drivers or less reached the chequered flag (the previous occasion being the season-opening Austrian GP with 11 finishers.)

      Lewis Hamilton has won the inaugural race at a circuit three times. The previous ones came at COTA and Sochi Autodrom in 2012 and 2014 respectively.

      He also set a new record of successive races where he’s reached the chequered flag. He’s now finished 42 races in a row beating the previous record held by Nick Heidfeld.

      His teammate’s 52nd career podium, surpassing the total of compatriot Mika Hakkinen.

      Mercedes achieved the maximum score of 44 for the first time this season, and also set a record by leading a lap in a 32nd consecutive race (Williams led 31 in a row from Magny-Cours 1995 to Imola 1997).

      Mercedes-Benz engines are now only 2 short of Ford’s F1 record of 228 consecutive races in the points (a Mercedes-powered car has been in the points at every race since the 2008 Japanese GP at Fuji Speedway).

      Pierre Gasly emulated compatriot Olivier Panis (the last French F1 race winner before him) by retiring from the very next race on the opening lap.

      George Russell’s 30th career start without a point, which is the 6th highest of all time.

      1. You missed Paul Richard for comeback year, and Yas Marina (pole)

        1. @Madjaya Comeback isn’t the same as inaugural, so not applicable in this context, nor the 2009 Abu Dhabi GP pole as it’s a pole, not a win. Seb won the inaugural Yas Marina Circuit race.

      2. His teammate’s 52nd career podium, surpassing the total of compatriot Mika Hakkinen.

        If ever a stat reflected Mercedes dominance, I think this says it more than any Hamilton stat. Would anyone vaguely suggest that Bottas were better than Hakkinen? OK more races per season now, but even Bottas’ podiums for Williams were largely down to Mercedes (engines).

        1. He smashed Massa at William and drag the car in some occasion to podium.

        2. Hakkinen was destroyed by Senna and he was barely better than Coulthard. Yes, I would rate Bottas higher than Hakkinen.

          1. Hakkinen and Senna drove 3 races togheter. Hakkinen qualified in front of Senna in his first race and was pretty much on pace with Senna in the race. In Portugal, Senna outqualified Hakkinen with 0,062 seconds. In the race, he finished well ahead of Hakkinen. Only in Australia did Senna actually had a big gap to Hakkinen. For a driver coming in a car mid-team, a car completely organised for Senna (who had been driving for the team for 6 years), Hakkinen did remarkably well and was hardly ‘destroyed’.

    10. I think most people will admit that either Senna or Schumacher will always be regarded as the greatest driver ever by a huge amount. Ham wouldn’t stand a chance against thoses guys in their prime.

      Stats are pretty meaningless, and certainly in Hams case as hes always had a winning car, especially the last five years when its been untouchable AND hes had a rubbish teammate in Bottas.

      1. I think most people will admit that either Senna or Schumacher will always be regarded as the greatest driver ever by a huge amount.

        You’re not convincing anyone with vague terms like “Most people”, “huge amount” etc. Some quantitative data or even a few example would be nice, don’t you think?

        hes had a rubbish teammate in Bottas

        So, how about then current 2-time WDC Alonso, 2009 WDC Button and even 2016 WDC Nico Rosberg?

        1. All of them better than Schumi but only Alonso managed to beat him end call him for retirement. Rosberg for second time. Button should blame himself to stucked with BAR Honda most of the time.

      2. Most people? What basis do you have for this?

      3. stats are pretty meaningless? Of course you need a winning car to win? This years williams isnt going to win the championship is it? Pretty sure Schumacher’s cars were winning cars?

      4. apart from the other set of “most people” who would say Fangio or Clark…

      5. Senna maybe, Schumacher is definitely not with “most” people.

      6. If you parachuted senna into Hamilton’s car, he would be dreadfully confused. I doubt Hamilton would risk driving flat out in Maserati 250F. And Clark would wonder why Senna’s car looks more like a plane… sure they might be considered the best of their generation but you’ll never find anything like a consensus about who was the best ever. Always a fun discussion topic though!

      7. What a load of rubbish.

      8. Certainly I am not “most” people but I always considered Prost vastly superior than Senna on the whole (although I admit Senna was much better in the wet and also a better qualifyer). And I followed both very closely including several live GPs. (BTW I’m not French)

    11. And how many GPs both drivers needed to achieve 90 wins?…

      1. Would have been 248 for Schumacher.

        259 for Hamilton.

        Don’t forget that Schumacher never had as many dominant cars as Hamilton.

        1. Except he did 2002-2004 and all the other years he still had team orders and preference on setups, testing and equipment.

          1. 2003? The Williams and McLaren were as quick as Ferrari in 2003. It was a closely fought championship. Schumacher was just better in the end.

            The only dominant cars Schumacher ever had in his career were 2002 and 2004 and to a lesser extent 2001.

        2. Don’t forget Schumacher never had three different WDCs as team mates.

          1. Rosberg should never have been a champion. Hamilton dropped the ball big time in 2016. A prime Schumacher would never have let that happen.

            Button won the title on account of a massive double diffuser advantage.

            1. Hamilton didn’t drop the ball in 2016, his car broke down a lot. 2 out of the first races he couldn;t set a time in Q3. Plus he got ounted out by Bottas in another race. Plus Spa, Singapore, Spain, Malaysia. It’s bizarre that Hamilton even got that close to Rosberg with all that adversity.

              Button won because he was a much better driver than Vettel. Vettel crashed out of the points for 3 of the first 6 races. Red Bull car was plenty fast from the get go. Red Bull locked out the front row in China (3nd race). Red Bull had the faster car in 2009, but Webber wasn’t fast enough and Vettel couldn’t keep his car on the road.

            2. Button also scored 40+ (48? can’t remember and can`t be bothered to look for it?) points than Hamilton in 2011, same machinery. So much for the GOAT status, I find the pretension unbelievably ridiculous.

    12. When was the last (if ever) that the podium finisher’s from the previous race retired in the next race (in this case, crashed)?

    13. Mugello is the 30th different circuit where Hamilton has finished on a podium. He is now in joint 1st place with Räikkönen.

    14. Hamilton will get more credit for his achivements after he retires, than right now as he breaks almost all of Schumacher’s records, especially if he retires on a high after he wins his 8th championship…?

      When Rosberg was battling with Hamilton, people used to say “Rosberg is not worthy of a championsip”, some i’m sure still do to this day. When he won the WDC and retired right then many said “oh he’s running away from Hamilton… Lewis would crush him the next season… he’d be seen as a lucky champion”, but his retirement at that moment and the fact that Bottas came in his seat and he’s unable to even compete with Hamilton the last 4 years on the same level as Rosberg tried and succeeded many times, gave Rosberg a greater amount of respect just for the fact that he kept Hamilton on the edge and managed to grab the title once.

      We might have been bored and accustomed to Hamilton’s constant winning, but when he leaves the sport, the ‘race win’ void will be filled by other (many) drivers and then we’ll fully understand the sheer dominance and excelence this guy achived over the last 10 years…

      1. Many do still rubbish Rosberg, but it’s just their way of downplaying Hamilton’s ability.

        1. They love to make opinion all of Lewis’s teammate are average in order to imply Hamilton is

      2. I still have no respect for Rosberg for running away. as far as I am concerned, indeed he retired because he realized he would never beat Hamilton again

    15. Hamilton now has 69 pole positions in Mercedes – one more than Michael Schumacher got in his entire career.

      1. Which, considering his total is around 95, really gives hindsight on how dominant the mercedes car was: hamilton was still a good qualifier to get 26 poles with mclaren, but you see how reliant on mercedes he’s been.

        1. Yep that Mercedes was a real pole scoring mister last year… oh wait?

          And what are Mercedes doing only fielding a single car all these years just so LH can score all the poles and win the races?

          Oh wait… again.

          I simply cannot believe the rubbish spouted on articles like this. You get Bondo completely rewriting history and assuming volume of statistically incorrect postings will make it how he wants it to be and you even get the Button 2011 ‘he got x more points than LH’ back for some more. In LH worst year. His very worst year. He scored 3 wins. Same as Button. He had terrible unreliability. Button had his best year. Yet was out of the championship running five races from the end.
          Dominant car? Try RB 2011. Only one none RB pole all year. Read that agin. No other car was on pole all year. There was virtually no other car on the front row all year, except for one race. Guess who?
          Yep that over hyped useless racer Lewis. In his worst ever year.
          How many poles did Button score at Macca?

    16. I think regardless of the dominant cars they had, Hamilton raced hard against his own team mate a lot of times, compared to Schumacher. Even in the Mercedes years, 2014 and 2016 were hard fought championships within the team. Not to mention his debut season at McLaren with Alonso and those troublesome seasons alongside Jenson Button.

      Schumacher never had that. When the team had a chance to win, they’d give it to him except on veeeery few ocassions like Sepang 1999 when he let Eddie go through or Monza 2004 when I guess they just let Rubens have that one…

      Yes, the field order is completely fixed these days, and reliability is better than ever, plus there are a lot more races per season. But who else raced in the same team with so many World Champions at their prime, no less?

      1. just wait for the David Bondo guy to say that Schumacher never had any favors from his teams. He wrecked team mates because he is the goat, and stuff like that.

        Rubens said more than once that Ferrari had two briefings before each race, and he was always excluded from the second one, but he probably made that all up, according to our mate here, lol.

        1. Barrichello was never going to win a championship. 4th in the championship 2000, 3rd 2001. Ferrari were right to back Schumacher.

          1. Well Schumacher certainly mad sure he wouldn’t by fixing every advantage to him. Funny how he got destroyed by Rosberg in equal machinery and opportunities.

            1. He matched him 10-10 in qualifying 2012 as a 42 year old. Two years later Rosberg beat Hamilton 11-8 in qualifying.

            2. Lol David, The extreme cherry picking, it’s just amazing.

          2. And he was 2nd in 2002 and 2004. So what?
            Schumacher had preferential treatment. This isn’t some big controvesial view, this is just a fact that everyone agrees.

            For Christ sake Ferrari used team orders on the 6th race of the season to hand the victory to Schumacher in Austria 2002! And not because Schumacher was facing a tough competition that year and they wanted to ‘help’ him in the fierce title fight… before the race he was already leading by double points on Montoya (44pts vs 23pts) and he’d won 4/5 first races… he just had preferential treatment and wanted him to secure that title with a record races to spare.

            At least Mercedes told Bottas to hand the victory to Hamilton in Russia 2018, late in the season, when the first one wasn’t even competing anymore for the championship.

            1. Ferrari had missed titles in 1997-99 by the skin of the teeth and 2000 was closely fought.

              Ferrari weren’t to know they would go on to dominate for the rest of the season.

              It’s not like Mercedes being in the most dominant car since 2014 yet still dudding Bottas on strategy to help Hamilton, sacrificing Bottas as a rear gunner to help Hamilton, taking a win off Bottas to help Hamilton.

              It’s not like now where if you lock in an advantage you will have it this year, the year after, the year after that.

            2. Yeah… but they already were dominant enough. Schumacher had won 9/17 races in 2000, 9/17 races in 2001, the regs were unchanged for 2002, they were by far the richest team, the one which had the most ‘political weight’ on FIA and by race 6 of 2002 they’d won 5/6 poles and 5/6 wins. If that’s not dominant enough by this point, i don’t know what is then.

              And yet that day stands as a farce in sports history, not because they did the logical thing of imposing team orders on a crucial point in the championship to help Schumacher win the title, but because they did so early in the season, without any strategic point, just to make Schumacher break the record and win the title with 6 races to spare instead of 4-5…
              Mercedes would be also inexcusable if they did it while they had a dominant car but in 2017-2018 they had far from a dominant car. You could argue Ferrari was faster that year. And even when they did impose team orders, it didn’t look good on them either, but at least it was logical, late in the season, Bottas was definately out of the contention and Hamilton was battling hard for the WDC against Vettel in another team.

              The fact that you argue Schumacher wasn’t priviledged at Ferrari is something that baffles me. That’s a fact that everyone has agreed and it’s so strange for someone to disagree with that, that it’s like making a stand like: “Ferraris are not red”.

            3. Barrichello wasn’t in contention for the championship by round 6 of 2002. The logical thing was to give maximum points 6 races into a 17 race season. Ferrari missed by the skin of their teeth in the late 90’s and 2000 went to the wire. They weren’t going to take chances.

              The McLaren was the quicker car in 2000 despite Schumacher winning 9 times. That’s just how good Schumacher was.

              Ferrari had the edge in 2001, but flattered by poor Williams reliability and Hakkinen out of sorts.

              Ferrari were not quicker in 2017 and 2018. From the very first race of 2017 Mercedes had a speed edge but blew that race tactically. Hamilton penalised in Bahrain for deliberately slowing Ricciardo.

              Hamilton always talked about being against team orders but he’s always taken advantage of them whenever they’ve presented it. No different to Alonso, Raikkonen orchestrating a swap with Massa Brazil 2017.

              Bottas was routinely sacrificed to be the rear gunner and disrupt the RBRs or Ferraris in addition to having a win taken off him (and never repaid unlike Schumacher who repaid Barrichello Indy 2002).

            4. Barrichello wasn’t in contention for the championship by round 6 of 2002

              EVERYONE was in contention for the championship by round 6!!!… it was round 6 not round 15… even Alex Yoong could theoreticaly win it, especially the guy driving the other dominant car on the field. If Schumacher was forced to miss some races for example like in 1999, then Barrichello would be Ferrari’s lead driver and that win would cost them.
              After round 5 Barrichello had only 6pts beacause in 4/5 races he retired, Montoya who was second had 23pts. Either you think Ferrari weren’t dominant enough, when they clearly were, which means the championship was wide open for everyone, even for Barrichello so early in the season so they denied him a win which could bring him in the title hunt… or you think Ferrari were dominant enough and they denied Barrichello the win for Schumacher’s championship chances, when they didn’t have to since they were dominant. Either way they clearly favored Schumacher and it was plain as day and they were righfully punished.

              Ferrari were not quicker in 2017 and 2018

              In 2017 Ferrari were quicker only in slow speed circuits (Monaco, Hungary etc) but in 2018 up until the summer break they were at the very least equal to Mercedes in all kinds of circuits. They were 5-5 on poles, 4-5 on wins and on the WCC standings they were 345-335 down on Mercedes. It could have easily been their championship but after the summer break they dropped the ball for the next 3-4 races and they lost it. Before Russia 2018 Hamilton was leading Vettel by 40pts and 110pts on Bottas and they’re 6 races left (150pts more to take). As much i didn’t like it, it made much more sense to give Hamilton that win.

              and never repaid unlike Schumacher who repaid Barrichello Indy 2002

              What a void ‘repairment’… “Rubens we’re taking a hard fought win from you in round 6/17 just so Michael can clinch the championship with 6 rounds to spare instead of the usual 4-5, but don’t you worry, Michael is so gracefull that he’ll hand you a win back after he wins the title and doesn’t mind… in the second to last race. Now say “i’m sorry for bothering you” or “yes master, whatever you please” and move on”.
              Thank god Bottas didn’t want a handout win that way to make him happy. We might not have a high opinion on him but if he wanted a handout like that, he would have reached new lows…

              Also let’s make a quick comparison between Schumacher’s (7WDC) and Hamilton’s (7WDC by the of the year) teammates:
              Schumacher had as teammates on his first stint (not the second one where he was BADLY spanked by a young Rosberg over 3 seasons) :
              Roberto Moreno (1 podium)
              Martin Brundle (9 podiums)
              Ricardo Patrese (6 wins, 37 podiums)
              Jos Verstappen (0 podiums)
              JJ Lehto (1 podium)
              Johnny Herbert (3 wins, 7 podiums)
              Eddie Irvine (4 wins, 26 podiums)
              Rubens Barrichello (11 wins, 68 podiums)
              Felipe Massa (11 wins, 41 podiums)
              TOTAL : teammates with 0 WDC, 35 wins, 190 podiums

              Hamilton on the other hand had as teammates :
              Fernando Alonso (2WDC, 32 wins, 97 podiums)
              Heikki Kovalainen (1 win, 4 podiums)
              Jenson Button (1WDC, 15 wins, 50 podiums)
              Nico Rosberg (1WDC, 23 wins, 57 podiums)
              Valtteri Bottas (8 wins, 52 podiums)
              TOTAL : teammates win 4WDC, 79 wins, 260 podiums

              Yeah… Hamilton is always running away from the tough teammates unlike Schumacher…

            5. Schumacher never drove for a top team in the 1990’s. Naturally he’ll have teammates that have accumulated less wins and titles since he was always in inferior equipment. He would have stayed at Benetton or gone to McLaren or Williams if he simply wanted to accumulate titles. Ferrari was a distant 4th choice.

              Hamilton did well in 2007 but I feel like he never really evolved a great deal as a driver, unlike someone such as Alonso who continued improving. Hamilton was Ron’s English golden haired boy in 2007 he wasn’t going to let him fail.

              Alonso did get beat by Trulli in 2004 as teammates. Button didn’t set the world on fire to win a title in 2009. Rosberg won a title because Hamilton constantly made errors in 2016.

            6. Naturally he’ll have teammates that have accumulated less wins and titles since he was always in inferior equipment

              Yeah we saw later when he joined Ferrari and Ferrari became the most dominant team by far, how his teammates were the best of the best out there… from Patrese and Herbert, the level of Schumacher’s teammates skyrocketed to Irvine and Barrichello…

              Hamilton did well in 2007 but I feel like he never really evolved a great deal as a driver

              He won 7/13 championships after 2007 (53%! and took 90 wins so far). If that’s not evolving in your eyes, just imagine if did evolve, how many more championship would he have by now? 13 out of 13?

              Hamilton was Ron’s English golden haired boy in 2007 he wasn’t going to let him fail

              Poor Michael, he never had the the special/preferential treatment in Ferrari, that Hamilton had with McLaren… Ferrari always sabotaged him from forcing him to ram Villeneuve out of the race and having disqualified in 1997… to forcing him to park his car in Rascasse in Monaco 2006. Poor Schumi, he’ll go down as the most unpriviledged driver of all time.

              Alonso did get beat by Trulli in 2004 as teammates. Button didn’t set the world on fire to win a title in 2009. Rosberg won a title because Hamilton constantly made errors in 2016.

              Rosberg completely destroyed Schumacher over 3 years and barely beat Hamilton (and it took an engine failure) in just 1 out of 4.
              Alonso stopped Schumacher’s-Ferrari dominace…so i guess Trulli is better than Schumacher by that logic…?
              And yeah Button didn’t set the world on fire by your abstract weird standards i guess… he just won a championship with a team that had no money whatsoever and a ex-Honda chassis where they bolted at the last minute a Mercedes engine. Now that’s the complete package to win a championship, no money to develop and a weird fusion between a chassis and a engine that the chassis wasn’t designed on.
              What a lousy set of teammates Hamilton had. Just 4WDC between them… Shame no one was as good as Herbert, Irvine, Barrichello who have 0*4WDC = 0WDC

            7. Johnny Herbert would have 50+ podiums if he drove a 2014-2020 Mercedes alongside Schumacher.

              Massa was a corner away from being champion in 2008. Schumacher blew him away.

              Barrichello was at about the level of a Rosberg maybe a little better if you look at his performances at Jordan and Stewart. 2000 Barrichello was much stronger than 2010 Barrichello.

              In races where both drivers finished in 2012, it was even between a 42 year old Schumacher and prime Rosberg, 10-10 in qualifying too. That’s incredible at 42.

              No-one has had a bigger doormat as teammate than Hamilton in Bottas.

          3. David Bondo.
            Why did a Mercedes replace Schumacher with Hamilton?
            If Schumi was sooo good he would have won all Lewis Wdcs at Mercedes. He had the seat after all.
            Oh wait I hear you say you can’t count that as emmm errr Schumi had got older 🤣🤣🤣
            Who did they think was better?
            You also seem to believe deliberately crashing into other drivers to end their races was fair enough?
            Surely you are trolling these forums.

            1. He was 42. He was a good 6-7 years past his best.

            2. Past his best!? How do you know that? He was more experienced, surely he was at his best when Nico spanked him 😂😂

            3. Past his best?

              You seem to forget that for example, Nigel Mansel won his championship at 40 then popped over the pond to win as a rookie who had never even seen an oval the Indy championship back when it was one. By 42!

              He was yards from winning the Indy 500 at his first attempt. Compare that to Alonsos attempts.

              And physically he was a damaged wreck compared any accidents Shumi had endured. His first season he broke his neck.

              He punched a hole in the concrete wall on an Oval and the g force ripped all the muscles in his back off his skeleton. He continued to race on that year with a 8inch square void filling with fluid on his back. And won…

              The list is endless and while he moaned people forget that until Shumi, the top three race winners were Prost, Senna and… Mansel.

          4. Massa is the strongest teammate Schumi have ever face for 1 season only. Massa have face both prime Schumi and Alonso. Now we can do parallel analyze Alonso vs Massa vs Schumi. Alonso crushing Massa on his Ferrari years more than Schumi did before. Alonso is better driver than Schumi as he managed to end Schumi era. Massa even managed to school Schumi on new f1 circuit at some occasions.

      2. Let’s not forget all of Hamilton’s teammates are in the top 20 fastest drivers in F1 as officially decided by formula 1 :D

        1. But that AWS algorithm put toward Senna and Schumi. Even Schumi doesn’t have any champions as teammate.

    17. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first dry race to be double red-flagged. The other races to be double red flagged were all wet:

      Brazil 2016: Raikkonen crash & rain
      Japan 2014: Typhoon & Bianchi crash
      Belgium 1981: Patrese crash & rain

      1. Add 1987 Austria and 1990 Belgium to that list (unless you discount races red-flagged on the first lap).

        1. Yes! My memory clearly isn’t what it used to be…

    18. Hamilton surely must be the first driver to be WDC in his second year after finishing second in his rookie first year.

      1. Penthouse Rizla Racing
        14th September 2020, 23:02

        @spiderman
        That would be Jacques Villeneuve – 1996 2nd, 1997 1st.

        2nd to Damon Hill in his rookie first year. Beat Heinz-Harald Frentzen to the title in 1997 following Michael Schumacher’s disqualification for deliberately driving into Villeneuve in the final round at Jerez. Interesting for being the second time Schumacher drove into the second placed driver in the WDC as they went for a potentially title winning overtake, the first being Damon Hill in 1994.

      2. Villeneuve did it too

        1. And Fangio if we’re allowed to count 1950 (which we probably shouldn’t)

    19. Verstappen keeps alive his 2020 record of either finishing on the podium or not at all.

      The lead Ferrari crossed the line 1 place behind an Alfa Romeo in both their 1st and 1000th races.

      First time that 2 consecutive races have been red-flagged since Monaco and Canada 2011. First time since Canada and France 1998 that 2 consecutive races were both dry and red-flagged.

      100th win for Mercedes since their return in 2010.

      Thanks to Channel 4 and the official F1 site for a couple of these.

    20. Here’s to Bondo and his 15 responses to the same topic. The new record holder is David Bondo I think his passion and knowledge was great

      1. Well, his passion anyway.

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