Has Lewis Hamilton Ever Raced in NASCAR? His Stock Car History Explained

• Lewis Hamilton has never entered an official NASCAR race at any level, but he drove Tony Stewart’s No. 14 Chevrolet Impala stock car during a Mobil 1 exhibition event at Watkins Glen International on 14 June 2011.
• Hamilton attended Jeff Gordon’s final NASCAR race in 2015 and later wrote that he “really fancy a race in a NASCAR one day,” preferring a road course or street circuit over an oval.
• Other Formula 1 drivers including Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya have competed in NASCAR, with Montoya spending seven full seasons in the Cup Series after leaving F1 in 2006.

Has Lewis Hamilton Ever Raced in NASCAR?

No, Lewis Hamilton has never raced in NASCAR. The seven-time Formula 1 World Champion has not entered, qualified for, or competed in any official NASCAR event at any level, from the Cup Series down to the Truck Series. His only time behind the wheel of a stock car came during an exhibition event at Watkins Glen International in June 2011, when he and three-time Cup Series champion Tony Stewart swapped cars for a handful of laps in front of roughly 10,000 fans. That demonstration remains the closest Hamilton has come to racing in NASCAR, though he has returned to the subject repeatedly over the years and expressed genuine interest in trying the series on a road course or street circuit.

The question surfaces regularly because Hamilton’s profile extends well beyond the Formula 1 paddock. He is the joint record holder for World Championship titles alongside Michael Schumacher, holds the all-time record for race wins with 106 victories, and carries a global celebrity that few drivers in any motorsport category have matched. The growing overlap between F1 and American motorsport, particularly since NASCAR began racing at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin alongside the United States Grand Prix, has only increased curiosity about whether the sport’s most decorated active driver might one day cross over.

The 2011 Watkins Glen Car Swap with Tony Stewart

On 14 June 2011, Hamilton and Tony Stewart met at Watkins Glen International in upstate New York for a car swap organised and sponsored by Mobil 1, which supplied lubricants to both McLaren and Stewart-Haas Racing. Hamilton drove Stewart’s No. 14 Chevrolet Impala Cup Series car, while Stewart drove Hamilton’s championship-winning McLaren Formula 1 car. The track was damp throughout the day, and both drivers ran on rain tyres over the full 3.4-mile long course, which includes the Boot section that NASCAR’s Cup Series does not normally use.

Hamilton, who admitted to nerves beforehand and was unfamiliar with the car’s H-pattern manual gearbox, completed six laps in the stock car. He spun the rear tyres leaving pit road and finished his session with a crowd-pleasing burnout at the start-finish line. Speaking to reporters afterward, Hamilton described the experience as pure joy: “I just feel like a kid. It’s good to feel like a kid again. It’s one of the coolest things I’ve done outside of racing Formula One. The competitive side of [racing] is so serious. After a tough weekend, I was worried even this morning.” Stewart, watching Hamilton light up the rear tyres from pit lane, offered his own assessment: “The good part is when you see somebody doing a burnout like that, you know they’re having a good time. That was icing on the cake.”

Stewart drove four laps in Hamilton’s McLaren and found the learning curve steep in the opposite direction. The three-time Cup champion struggled to get the car out of first gear at pit exit, unfamiliar with the sequential paddle-shift system and the narrow power band of a naturally aspirated V8 producing over 750 horsepower through a car weighing little more than 600 kilograms. Once he found his rhythm, Stewart called it “truly the experience of a lifetime.” The event drew an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 spectators and was broadcast as a special on the Speed Channel. Watkins Glen president Michael Printup noted during the broadcast that the circuit had hosted the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix from 1961 to 1980, making the venue a natural home for a crossover between the two worlds.

Hamilton’s Changing Views on Racing Outside Formula 1

Hamilton’s attitude toward NASCAR and other racing series has shifted noticeably over the course of his career. In November 2015, he attended the NASCAR Cup Series season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway to watch four-time champion Jeff Gordon’s final race. The experience left a mark. Writing in his BBC Sport column afterward, Hamilton said the event “made me want to drive one. I really fancy a race in a NASCAR one day. I’m not sure I’d do an oval, but possibly a street circuit or road course.” He also noted how different the atmosphere was from an F1 paddock, comparing the smaller team structures and open fan access to his own Formula Three days earlier in his career.

By late 2017, that enthusiasm had cooled. Hamilton told Sky Sports he had “zero interest” in racing outside Formula 1 and that no other category held any appeal. He said he had more exciting plans outside of racing entirely and was clear that F1 represented the pinnacle for him. The timing made sense: Hamilton was in the middle of his dominant run with Mercedes, winning four of five World Championships between 2017 and 2020, and there was little reason to look elsewhere when he was operating at the peak of his powers in the fastest cars on the planet.

His stance softened again by 2023. Speaking to media at the Miami Grand Prix, Hamilton revisited the idea with evident warmth: “I did a car swap with Tony Stewart years ago, which was fun. I’d love to try it at some stage. It’s not a dream for me to go race another series, but I am an admirer. I’m a fan of racing and other sports. So I would like to try it.” He also mentioned wanting to test an IndyCar and recalled the thrill of swapping machinery with MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi at Valencia’s Circuit Ricardo Tormo in December 2019, when Hamilton rode Rossi’s Yamaha MotoGP bike while Rossi drove one of Hamilton’s Mercedes Formula 1 cars.

As of mid-2026, Hamilton is in his second season with Ferrari and has given no indication he plans to leave Formula 1 anytime soon. He won his 106th career race at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix earlier this season, his first victory for the Italian team, and told Sky Sports ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix that he is “still focused, still motivated” and planning for “the next five years.” His contract with Ferrari runs until at least the end of 2027. Whether a NASCAR outing fits into that timeline or beyond it remains an open question, but the interest Hamilton has expressed over more than a decade suggests the idea has never fully left his mind.

F1 Drivers Who Have Competed in NASCAR

While Hamilton has only driven a stock car in exhibition, other Formula 1 drivers have taken the step of entering official NASCAR races. Juan Pablo Montoya remains the most committed crossover in the sport’s modern history. The Colombian, who won seven Grands Prix and the 2003 Monaco Grand Prix for Williams and McLaren, left F1 mid-season in 2006 and spent seven full seasons racing in the NASCAR Cup Series for Chip Ganassi Racing from 2007 to 2013. He won two Cup races, including the 2007 race at Sonoma Raceway, and added one Xfinity Series victory. Montoya later returned to open-wheel racing and won the 2015 Indianapolis 500, becoming one of the very few drivers to win at Monaco, Indy, and in NASCAR’s top division.

Kimi Raikkonen, the 2007 F1 World Champion, dipped into NASCAR during a break from Formula 1 in 2011, running select Truck Series and Xfinity Series events. He returned to NASCAR more than a decade later through Trackhouse Racing’s Project 91 programme, which fields a Cup Series entry for internationally recognised drivers from outside the series. Raikkonen raced at Watkins Glen in August 2022, qualifying 27th and running inside the top ten before a crash ended his afternoon. He returned to the Cup Series at the Circuit of the Americas in 2023. Raikkonen’s Project 91 outings demonstrated that there is a pathway for F1 drivers to enter NASCAR, though Hamilton has never publicly engaged with Trackhouse or any other Cup team about a race seat.

The gap between F1 and NASCAR in terms of car philosophy, driving technique, and race strategy is wider than most fans assume. F1 cars generate their speed through aerodynamic downforce, hybrid power, and engineering. Stock cars rely on mechanical grip, close-quarters drafting, and the ability to manage a 3,400-pound machine through sustained side-by-side contact that would destroy a Formula 1 car on the first lap. The skill transfer is real but far from automatic, which is partly why Hamilton has always specified road courses and street circuits rather than ovals as his preferred setting for a potential NASCAR outing.

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Written by

Jack Renn

Jack Renn is an editor at F1 Chronicle and a veteran motorsport journalist with 25 years of experience covering Formula 1 and international motorsport. A member of the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive (AIPS), the global body representing accredited sports journalists, Jack has spent his career reporting from paddocks and press rooms across the F1 calendar. His work spans race analysis, technical insight, and in-depth features, giving readers authoritative coverage grounded in decades of firsthand experience at the highest level of the sport.

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