After 945 days and 56 races, Lewis Hamilton is back on the top step of a Formula One podium as the 2024 British Grand Prix winner. He is the sixth driver to claim victory in 2024.
Hamilton declared the race win to be the finest of his career. With a record 104 race wins to his name, that is a bold statement, but it is easy to see why he feels that way, and it is equally hard to disagree with that assessment.
After winning a Formula One race every year since he started in 2007, Hamilton’s career changed in Abu Dhabi after losing the season’s final race. Winning the race would have given him yet another season’s championship, and many thought it was an administratively conspired and manufactured victory for Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. With that win, Verstappen (not Hamilton) became the champion driver of the year.
Verstappen then won the driver’s title in 2022 and 2023, while Hamilton failed to win a race during either of those seasons.
It was an unexpected and dramatic turn for Hamilton, a seven-time world champion who has won more Grand Prix races than any other driver in the sport’s history. Fans wondered how Hamilton felt about his sudden fall from the top perch, but the question mark vanished after Sunday’s race. Hamilton admitted that he had suffered self-doubts during his barren run, including considering quitting the sport. Two things struck me about that admission. First, it is refreshing to hear that someone so successful can have the self-doubts that plague everyone else. Second, it was the first time since the controversial end to the 2021 season that he had opened up publicly about the events in Abu Dhabi and the effects it had on his mental health.
Beyond the emotional weight lessened after Sunday’s win. Hamilton’s victory carries additional weight for the Mercedes team–a team with a string of Constructor’s Championships that spanned 2014-2021 but hasn’t won the title since. This year, Mercedes took a back seat to Ferrari and McLaren until design changes made its cars more competitive. But even though the Silver Arrows have claimed the last two races–Russell in Austria and Hamilton at Silverstone, and the team has secured podium spots in the two races before that–both drivers trail Verstappen significantly for driver of the year honors, and Mercedes trails Red Bull, McLaren, and Ferrari in the Constructors’ race.
It also needs to be emphasized that this was Hamilton’s last British Grand Prix in a Mercedes car, in a career with the team that has spanned 12 years, six World Drivers Championships, and now 83 race wins. Both Hamilton and Mercedes have been open about wanting to end their relationship on a high, and even though there are still 12 races remaining in the 2024 F1 season, a home victory at Silverstone seems like the fitting end to the partnership. The victory was Hamilton’s 9th at Silverstone, a record for any driver at the same circuit, and it was his 12th consecutive British Grand Prix podium going back to 2014, another record.
Beyond what the win meant for Hamilton and Mercedes, there is the critical matter of what the race (and several races before Silverstone) has meant to the sport. Throughout Sunday’s 52-lap race, various drivers looked in control as the lead changed hands multiple times in the challenging weather conditions. From lap one up until the final lap, it was never sure who would win the race; Hamilton, Lando Norris, Russell, Verstappen, and Oscar Piastri looked like they were in prime position to win. Count them: five drivers from three teams competed for the race win.
After Red Bull and Max Verstappen’s dominance over the last two seasons, Formula One has been crying out for this open competition for the race win at every race. But now we have had six different drivers and three different teams win races in 2024, and the on-track action is finally living up to what fans want to see. Feel-good stories, like Lewis Hamilton’s victory at Silverstone, only add to the widespread love of Formula One.
