Lewis Hamilton breaks Michael Schumacher’s record for race wins at Portuguese Grand Prix
Make that NINETY TWO wins! Awesome Lewis Hamilton battles back from crazy start to dominate in Portugal and surpass Michael Schumacher to set new record for most race victories in F1 history
- Lewis Hamilton dominated Valtteri Bottas to take a crushing win in Portimao in the Portuguese Grand Prix
- The Brit had slipped to third having initially led away at the start of the race with spots of rain hitting track
- But the world champion easily flew past rivals including Bottas and shock leader Carlos Sainz to take control
- Max Verstappen took a distant third for Red Bull behind the Mercedes duo, with Charles Leclerc in fourth
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A couple of lifetimes’ endeavour was depicted on a Times Square-style billboard that flashed as red tickertape swirled to the ground.
In blue and white, the screen read: HAMILTON, NEW WORLD RECORD, 92 WINS.
That said it all on this special day for British sport, when Lewis stretched his talent across 14 years of winning, dating from Montreal on June 10, 2007 to this windswept day in the Algarve and an appropriately crushing 25-second victory.
A couple of lifetimes, though?
Lewis Hamilton celebrates winning the Portuguese Grand Prix at Portimao after dominating the field on Sunday afternoon
Holding the winner’s trophy, Hamilton celebrates his 92nd victory breaking Michael Schumacher’s race wins record
Hamilton embraces his father Anthony after the race after Lewis broke Schumacher’s 14-year record for race wins
Well, here at Portimao, as in that first incredible rookie season, stood his father Anthony, who dedicated so much of himself to Lewis’s history-making.
He took on three jobs to fund his early days and here he was again as his boy, now 35, fulfilled the prophecies he had long made for him.
‘I always said he would do this, back when he got into Formula One, and now he has,’ was Hamilton Snr’s take on how even Michael Schumacher, on 91 wins, is being left behind by Lewis’s remarkable deeds.
The next target is a seventh world title to move level with the feted German — and then who knows how far beyond?
Hamilton stands on the top step of the podium with his race engineer ‘Bono’ (left) after winning the Portuguese Grand Prix
Valtteri Bottas (left) and Max Verstappen (right) could only finish a distant second and third respectively behind Hamilton
As well as taking a dominating win, Hamilton now leads Bottas by 77 points in the 2020 drivers’ world championship
The Brit is now also closing in on matching Schumacher’s record of seven world championships with five races to go
Hamilton’s stepmother Linda was at the track but it was just Anthony representing the family, who own a house in Portugal, as Lewis stepped out of the car.
They embraced for maybe 15 seconds. What they said was hidden by their masks.
Both welled up. Two men with their joint dreams realised. It was made all the more poignant because they barely spoke for a chunk of their journey towards sporting immortality. That was after Lewis broke away from his father’s management in 2010 and the two proud and sometimes prickly men struggled to connect for a number of years.
Now, after a slow thaw, a different, closer relationship has been rekindled and here they could share a moment of glory without rancour or resentment.
‘I could never dream of being where I am today,’ said Lewis. ‘My dad is here which is amazing. It’s a very blessed day.’
Hamilton had led away at the start of the race heading downhill into turn one following a good start in Portimao
But as Mercedes struggled with tyre temperatures in the first few laps and Carlos Sainz (front) took a shock lead for McLaren
After Sainz fell away, Bottas moved into first but was soon caught and passed by Hamilton within the first 20 laps
When the last Portuguese Grand Prix was held at Estoril in 1996, 11-year-old Hamilton was tearing up the karting scene by winning the aptly titled Champions of the Future series.
Anthony acted as adviser and mechanic then and you suspect such memories infiltrated his thoughts nearly a quarter of a century on.
Hamilton won here with an elan that fitted the occasion, but that is not how it looked at the start. The world champion, away cleanly from pole, was soon skating — unable to warm his medium tyres on the slippery surface.
He was back in third place at the end of the opening lap. Carlos Sainz of McLaren led. That was not in the script. Hamilton’s team-mate Valtteri Bottas lay second until he passed the Spaniard five laps later.
The decisive moment came as Hamilton clocked three consecutive fastest laps. He was now bearing down on Bottas and soon breezed past the Finn on lap 20. He then applied his right foot to the jugular.
Hamilton crosses the line as his Mercedes team celebrate his record-breaking victory on Sunday afternoon in Portugal
Max Verstappen took a distant third for Red Bull in a day which saw Mercedes once again dominate the rest of the field
Sparks fly from Charles Leclerc, who took a highly impressive fourth place for Ferrari to maintain his relatively fine season
His only external concern was the possibility of rain. The odd drop fell, but nothing serious.
So Hamilton simply rode away majestically into the pages of history. By the end, he had lapped all but the top four and his margin over Bottas was nearly half a minute. Hamilton even had to overcome cramp in his right leg.
‘It’s a very physical circuit and you never really get to rest,’ he explained. ‘My calf popped. It hurt so much that I had to lift off the throttle and I didn’t really know what to do.
‘Every time I applied the accelerator the pain was there. I couldn’t stay off the gas so I had to keep going. It’s mind over matter.’
He retains a near-pathological need to win — almost as validation of himself — that has been a hallmark since that wonderful rookie season at McLaren. The impulse refuses to be dimmed by success, age or his £250million fortune.
Verstappen heavily locks his tyres as he looks to defend from Sainz and Leclerc during the opening lap of the race
After a first lap collision, Sergio Perez (front) took a superb seventh place having fought back from the back of the pack
Just as he beat Fernando Alonso in his first year, when the Spaniard was the reigning double world champion, now he is holding the young upstarts at bay — Max Verstappen at Red Bull, who finished third, and Charles Leclerc, fourth for Ferrari.
Hamilton has won a race in every season he has contested and in machinery that has not always been the best, winning titles in arguably inferior equipment in 2007 and possibly in 2017 and 2018.
And, of course, the reason Mercedes pay him £35m a year is that he is the best around.
He underlined that by setting the fastest lap to move 77 points clear of Bottas with 130 remaining. The championship could well end as soon as the race after next in Turkey on November 15, with three rounds to spare.
Before that comes Imola next week and another chance for Hamilton to prove himself a man apart.
RE-LIVE ALL THE PORTUGUESE GP ACTION…
