Lewis Hamilton’s ten greatest F1 wins

Lewis Hamilton became only the third driver in history to accumulate 50 grand prix wins by taking the chequered flag in Austin on Sunday, clawing back seven points from his deficit to Nico Rosberg in what is now a desperate bid to secure a fourth world title.

The Mercedes driver has sat third on the all-time win list since surpassing Sebastian Vettel’s current tally of 42 last season – also at the US GP – but this latest triumph leaves him just one win shy of Alain Prost in second place.

After that only seven-time champion Michael Schumacher ranks above the Frenchman, although his total of 91 victories remains well out of Hamilton’s reach, for the time being at least.

Having scored 22 wins with McLaren in the first six years of his career, the following four campaigns with the Silver Arrows have yielded a further 28, giving Hamilton an overall win rate of 27.03 per cent.

In his respect he is the seventh most successful F1 driver ever, although Juan Manuel Fangio (46.15 per cent), Alberto Ascari (39.39 per cent), Jim Clark (34.25 per cent), Lee Wallard and Bill Vukovich (both 33.33 per cent) entered fewer races combined than Hamilton has in total to date. Make of that what you will.

Numbers aside Hamilton is widely regarded as one of the quickest drivers to ever grace the sport, although his temperament has cost him dearly in the past. There’s no doubt that he drifts in and out of form, but when he’s really on his game, there are few that can reach his level.

Here are ten occasions when he was at his absolute best...

Hamilton’s first ever F1 win. Finishing on the podium in each of his first five races in his rookie season, a 22-year-old Lewis finally made it to the top step of the podium at the sixth time of asking at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

Having out-qualified teammate Fernando Alonso by nearly half a second, Hamilton led from lights out and survived four deployments of the safety car to cross the line ahead of Nick Heidfeld and Alexander Wurz.

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Colliding with a wall in Monaco usually means game over, but Hamilton did just that and still managed to recover and win the race. Kissing the barriers at Tabac, the McLaren driver was forced to pit with a right-rear puncture early on, apparently scuppering his chances of victory.

Fortunately for him though, the wet conditions meant he only lost three places during the stop, and a clever long-fuel strategy for the second stint eventually restored Lewis to the front of the race. Tyres nearly intervened once again on the last lap as he was hit by a slow puncture, but Hamilton nursed the car over the line before it could undo his afternoon’s work.

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Even in a dominant car, it’s rare for a driver’s winning margin to be more than a handful of seconds in F1 these days. With teams hyper-conscious of preserving their engines, an ideal race is won by establishing a lead and then ‘managing the gap’ until the chequered flag.

So Lewis Hamilton must have been in a formula of his own at Silverstone in 2008 when his winning margin to second placed Nick Heidfeld was a whopping 68 seconds. He surged into the lead (briefly) from fourth at the start, and with McLaren nailing their tyre choices in wet weather, Hamilton rewarded the home crowd with a scintillating display in which he lapped everyone but his fellow podium finishers.

Hamilton’s title defence began badly in 2009 as McLaren produced a car that simply couldn’t live with the competition for the first half of the season. Heading into the weekend at the Hungaroring, the world champion had registered five straight races without scoring a single championship point; still the longest such streak of his career.

Quite how he prevailed in Hungary, then, is anyone’s guess. Pacesetter Fernando Alonso looked to be the prime candidate for victory having landed pole in qualifying, but a botched pit stop (which left him with only three wheels on his car) was followed by a fuel pump failure, allowing Hamilton to capitalise.

Victory here was his first as a reigning world champion, and was also a first for a car running the new-fangled Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS).

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That race is famous for Red Bull’s implosion when – running in first and second – Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel collided in a battle for the lead, costing them both a shot at victory.

It was also one of Lewis Hamilton’s more memorable wins, coming after an enthralling four-car fight between Red Bull and McLaren at the front of the race. After Webber and Vettel’s accident, Hamilton and teammate Jenson Button were left to race to the finish, and boy did they push each other.

Team principal Martin Whitmarsh must’ve had his heart in his mouth as his drivers came within inches of repeating Red Bull’s mistake, but Hamilton and Button kept their wheel-to-wheel action clean and fair until the chequered flag, with Hamilton just coming out on top. Bravo.

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This was Hamilton’s last win as a McLaren driver, sandwiched between DNFs in Abu Dhabi and Brazil. By this point his switch to Mercedes for 2013 had already been confirmed, and the victory at the Circuit of the Americas proved to be his swansong with the team.

Briefly losing second place to Mark Webber off the line, Hamilton soon reclaimed the position from the Australian and set about hunting down leader Sebastian Vettel. As the German approached traffic on lap 42, Lewis made a move stick using DRS down the back straight, and he kept his rival at bay for the remainder of the grand prix.

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A modern classic. With Mercedes light years ahead of anyone else at the beginning of the V6 hybrid engine era, only reliability could prevent either Lewis Hamilton or Nico Rosberg from winning in 2014. Bahrain was their best contest by far, with the German launching persistent attacks which Hamilton had an answer for every single time in the first stint.

A split tyre strategy gave the Briton a ten second lead over Rosberg in the middle part of the race, although he was left severely disadvantaged as a safety car period wiped out this buffer with ten laps to go, forcing him to defend on the slower compound in the final stages. Somehow, Lewis came out on top.

The 2014 campaign was full of setbacks for Hamilton, and slipping to fourth from pole position at Monza (having conceded 25 points to Nico Rosberg over the previous three races) threatened to tip the balance in the race for the title.

Not one to give up, Hamilton regained his composure and worked his way back past Kevin Magnussen and Felipe Massa before setting his sights on Rosberg just a few seconds up the road. The unrelenting pressure forced the German into a mistake at the chicane on lap 29, and Hamilton pounced to take the lead. The recovery sparked a run of five consecutive wins, which remains his longest F1 winning streak.

In terms of pace this might not be one of Hamilton’s finest races, but it’s hard to dismiss a win which includes a late overtake to claim a third world title. It doesn’t happen all that often.

Outqualified by Rosberg, Hamilton snatched the lead in Turn 1 as his teammate dropped to fifth, and the conditions caused by the aftermath of a hurricane brought the Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat into play as rare contenders at the front. However as the track dried the duo’s challenge faded away, by which time a resurgent Rosberg had reeled in and passed Hamilton on raw speed alone.

In the final stages a safety car period left the Mercedes drivers in a ten-lap sprint for the line, and knowing an overtake would make him world champion again, Hamilton told himself to focus. Rosberg failed to do the same, and sure enough the German made an error two laps later, gifting Hamilton a third championship crown.