Can Lewis Hamilton Win Another Grand Prix With Mercedes?

As the FIA F1 2024 World Championship season draws to a close with Max Verstappen having already claimed the title for a fourth consecutive occasion with two races to go, the focus rests on a few other things on the grid. And while one of the big questions is whether McLaren’s in-form driver Lando Norris, who had been a big title threat to Verstappen, can win a Grand Prix to end 2024 on a high, it isn’t the only thing that is topping the fan’s mind.

The other big question is whether seven-time world champion Sir Lewis Hamilton, a timeless legend of the grid and someone with no fewer than 105 race wins to his name, claim another victory with Mercedes.

There are drivers. There are great drivers and then, there’s a certain Sir Lewis Hamilton, who for the lack of a better expression, had made winning a habit and converted the F1 grid into a platform of racing greatness.

Someone who claimed a win in his maiden season in F1, circa 2007, the year in which he finished just a solitary point behind then champion Kimi Matias Raikkonen, Sir Lewis Hamilton, quite simply, converted Mercedes fortunes at the behest of a career move that may never even have happened.

In some ways, his entire career, it could be argued, bears great testimony to the fact that one can realise just about any dream for as long as there’s the great appetite and will for struggle. And beyond the sweet taste of victory have been countless days of struggle and numerous hours of practice and patience.

That is how a stellar career has come to be.

And while Sir Lewis Hamilton became the only Formula 1 driver to register 100 race wins (and the first and only driver with Mercedes to do so) upon winning the 2021 Russian Grand Prix held at Sochi, he would take five further wins, where it stands at present, all with the great Mercedes outfit, a stable where he is left with no more than just two more races.

So make no mistake: in what has been a remarkable run for the man from Stevenage at Mercedes, all that remains now in his famed Silver Arrows run are just more Grands Prix and hence, this prompts a great question:

Can Sir Lewis Hamilton somehow manage to snatch one more win before he steps out of the silver racing overalls and thus bringing an end to a decade long stint at Mercedes?

As seen earlier this year, Lewis Hamilton was declared the winner of the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix, after teammate George Russell was disqualified owing to a car weight infringement (his Mercedes being lighter, as the stewards noted). Post this, he would conquer his home race, i.e., the British Grand Prix. In what was another sensational drive from the start to the checkered flag, Hamilton reigned supreme on race strategy and pure pace.

These are, as a matter of fact, exactly the things that he would like to do for at least one more occasion before his checkered Mercedes career draws to a close. Remember, it’s been a career that has seen him capture six of his seven world titles the Brackley-based outfit. If that is not a mighty fine achievement, then one is compelled to ask: what is?

And with a fresh Las Vegas podium under his belt with fans and pundits being evidence to a brilliant Mercedes 1-2 finish, it could be argued that Sir Lewis Hamilton is still very much in form. He would not want to step out of the Mercedes car without another race win- isn’t it?

So inveterate had winning become as a habit to Sir Lewis Hamilton, that there was a time, especially since 2017-2020 where if he wouldn’t conquer a world title, it didn’t seem as though it was Formula 1 at its best. Hamilton’s mega victories helped expand the appeal of F1 and enabled the sport to elongate its magic and impact over countless fans.

His ability to dominate a track and set purple sectors in a Grand Prix even on occasions where it didn’t seem as though he could make things go his way make him (even to this day) a racer over and above a driver.

And that’s exactly the thing that could well put someone like Toto Wolff sport a wide-eyed smile in what’s left ahead. For what remains are just two races with Abu Dhabi being one of them. It’s akin to one final push for the man described as “Hammertime” and could be argued that just about anything can happen at the Yas Marina, where Hamilton endured perhaps the toughest time in his career.

But what are men without scars and setbacks. For it is tragedies that often fast track them on the path to progress, isn’t it?

This, then is Sir Lewis Hamilton. Lest it is forgotten, here is a hero whose wins lift the sport and it often happens thanks to the pulsating talent and ceaseless skill of that boy who saw in Ron Dennis a great mentor and someone in whom F1 sees one of its biggest reasons behind enjoying wheel-to-wheel racing.