By earning his 10th victory of the 2018 Formula 1 season, Lewis Hamilton extended an all-time record that he has held since the 2016 season.
In addition to moving into a tie for second place on the all-time Formula 1 championships list with five-time champion Juan Manuel Fangio behind only seven-time champion Michael Schumacher earlier this season, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport’s Lewis Hamilton has now extended an all-time record that he has held since the 2016 season.
Hamilton’s victory in this 71-lap Brazilian Grand Prix around the 15-turn, 2.677-mile (4.309-kilometer) Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace road course in Sao Paulo, Brazil was his 10th victory of the season.
Prior to the 2018 season, there had only been seven 10-win seasons in Formula 1 history. Schumacher pulled off this feat twice, and Scuderia Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, the four-time champion Hamilton recently eliminated to secure the 2018 championship, has done so twice as well.
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Schumacher won 11 races in the 2002 season and 13 races in the 2004 season while Vettel won 11 races in the 2011 season and 13 races in the 2013 season. These two drivers won the championships in the seasons during which they were able to secure these win totals.
Hamilton entered the 2018 season having earned at least 10 victories in a season on three separate occasions. En route to winning his second career championship in the 2014 season, he earned 11 victories. En route to winning his third career championship in the 2015 season, he earned 10 victories.
While Hamilton did not win his fourth career championship in the 2016 season, he finished in second place in the championship standings and earned an additional 10 victories en route to doing so, giving him the all-time record of three seasons with at least 10 victories.
While Hamilton won his fourth career championship last season, he did so after securing only nine victories, so he was unable to extend his all-time record of seasons with at least 10 victories to four.
Now, however, he has done so.
Hamilton’s fourth season of 10 or more victories may very well put this all-time record in a territory that may never be touched. After all, he has now accounted for half of the 10-win seasons in Formula 1 history, and he has twice as many 10-wins seasons as the other two drivers who have recorded at least one 10-win season.
Let’s also not ignore the fact that these two drivers whose 10-win season totals Hamilton has doubled just happen to be two of the greatest drivers in Formula 1 history.
With Lewis Hamilton having earned four 10-win seasons over the course of his Formula 1 career, will his record for 10-win seasons ever be tied or broken? Will he win at least 10 races in any more seasons? If so, in which season or seasons will he pull off this feat yet again?