F1 News: Lewis Hamilton Bows to Max Verstappen Dominance -"Records There to be Broken"

There are high chances of Max Verstappen breaking Lewis Hamilton's 103 Formula 1 race wins record in the future. Records are there to be broken says Hamilton.

Looking at the rate at which Max Verstappen has been winning races, it won't be long before he surpasses Lewis Hamilton's record of 103 race victories in Formula 1. 

It's not that Hamilton's count will continue to remain the same. But it has been a while since his most recent race win was the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in 2021!

At 25 years of age, Verstappen has a long career ahead of him, his most recent win being the Spanish Grand Prix held just two weeks ago. Being realistic, Hamilton said:

“He’s got a very long career ahead of him so absolutely.

“Ultimately records are there to be broken and he’s got an amazing team.”

Hamilton and his team have been facing multiple challenges with their W14 F1 car. As a result, they scored their last win in November last year- courtesy of George Russell. 

As per Hamilton, his team will have to work harder to try and continue to extend his 'wins' record. 

“I hope we get to have some, at least within the last period of time in my career, I hope we get to have some more close racing", he said.

Speaking of records, if Max Verstappen wins this Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix, his race wins would become the fifth highest any driver has ever achieved. More importantly, it will tally with Ayrton Senna's score of 41 wins! 

Remembering the moment his wins tallied with Ayrton Senna's in 2017, Hamilton says: 

“It was very surreal.

Being five years old, watching with my dad, the dream was to be like Ayrton. And then the dream was to get to Formula 1 and do something like him.

To then find that you’re matching or equalling in terms of results – ultimately it’s unfair because there’s a lot more races in our time back than there were then. But still it’s a real honour.

“They gave me a replica helmet or something like that, so that was very cool. Max has been doing an amazing job, he’s had such an incredible career so far and he is for sure going to surpass that. I’m working on getting the car to where it needs to be so we can slow him down.”

Being rather humble, Hamilton believes that Verstappen's milestones shouldn't be used to compare it with other drivers, especially since more races happen nowadays as opposed to the earlier days. He said:

“People always have different kinds of careers, Maybe some drivers, they get into a race winning car sooner than others. Nowadays, of course, we have more races than back in the day. So I never really look at the number."

“But when I was a little kid I would have never imagined to be in that list. So for me it’s definitely an amazing achievement, for sure. But you can’t compare it, that’s one thing."

A modest Max Verstappen responded by saying that Hamilton's record is "very hard to beat." He hinted that it is all going well right now but you never know for how long it stays this way. He said:

“Obviously you need to be in the right car for a long time and we don’t know if we have that. But it’s also not something I ever looked at. I’m just going with the flow and enjoying the moment.

If you look at how we are performing now, yes (we could), but it is very unrealistic, I think, because there will always be things that will go wrong in the season that are maybe sometimes out of your control.

So I’m not thinking that is possible. But when you look at it realistically at the moment with how quick the car is, yes, it is.

Last year was already quite crazy with 15 wins, but as long as I win the championship, that’s the most important.”

Verstappen's contract with Red Bull lasts until 2028. Do you think he would surpass Hamilton's record in the near future?