A look at how the world champion and title leader is making his move in F1's record books
Thursday 13 August 2015 10:09, UK
For the first time since his maiden title-winning year of 2008, Lewis Hamilton sits atop the F1 Drivers' Championship at the summer break.
In terms of results and points accrued, the Mercedes driver has enjoyed his best-ever start to a season after 10 races and will resume his quest for a third world title at Spa in two weeks' time with a 21-point advantage over team-mate Nico Rosberg.
We take a look at some of the records – and runs – Hamilton has totted up in 2015...
With five more wins and nine pole positions already in 2015, Hamilton finds himself in increasingly illustrious company towards the top of the sport’s records tables.
Now in his ninth F1 season, Hamilton has, for now at least, overhauled Ferrari rival Sebastian Vettel for third place on the all-time list of pole positions with his 47 qualifying ‘P1s’ putting him behind just Ayrton Senna (65) and Michael Schumacher (68).
Vettel’s victory in Hungary means it was the German, however, who reached Senna’s mark of 41 race wins first, with Hamilton still three back of his childhood idol’s 38 victories. Intriguingly, should Hamilton win the first three races after the summer break, then his F1 record would be exactly the same as the great Brazilian’s – 41 wins from 161 starts.
Certainly, there's every chance that both drivers will be past Senna's tally by the end of the season particularly when you consider that since the start of 2007, the year in which both Hamilton and Vettel made their F1 debuts, they have between them won 79 of the 158 grands prix to have taken place – exactly 50 per cent.
Hamilton will also soon be level with Senna for podium finishes, with the Briton just one shy of his hero’s 80 top-three appearances.
Speaking recently about the prospect of matching his childhood hero’s numbers, Hamilton said: "Statistics I don’t really ever think about. It’s kind of neat to be in amongst an area of what Ayrton achieved because when I was a kid I always wanted to emulate him. To say that I’m on par to do that is quite neat."
In British terms, Hamilton already led the way for poles, race victories and podiums before at Silverstone he surpassed Nigel Mansell's national mark of total laps led.
Hamilton may have ultimately left Hungary with an increased championship lead, but his surprise sixth-place finish brought to an end two significant sequences.
At July’s British GP Hamilton surpassed Jackie Stewart’s 45-year-old record for consecutive grands prix led, setting a new benchmark of 18. That run stretched all the way back to last year’s Hungarian GP but the Mercedes driver missed out on a full season of leading at least one lap of every race when he plummeted down the order on the opening lap.
His race-long struggles meant his run of consecutive podium finishes also ended, with his tally of 16 ending up three short of Michael Schumacher’s all-time record set in 2001-02. Hamilton, whose top-three run began when he won last September’s Italian GP, had long surpassed his own personal best run of nine podiums set right back at the start of his F1 career with McLaren.
The world champion, however, does remain on the best runs for points finishes (17) and front-row starts (18) of his career. Senna holds the record for the latter qualifying sequence with 24.
Although Hamilton would need to win all the remaining nine rounds to set a new record for the most wins in a single season, there are a number of further landmarks that could come his way if the second half of 2015 mirrors the first:
Most poles in a season - Sebastian Vettel set the current record of 15 in 2011 and Hamilton, with a near-perfect qualifying record in 2015, is on course to break it.
Most podiums in a season - While Michael Schumacher's 100% record of 17 podiums in 17 races from 2002 may never be matched, Hamilton could at least equal the total number previously also achieved by Vettel in 2011.
Most front-rows in a season - Vettel, again from his dominant 2011 title win, set the current benchmark with 18. Hamilton has 10 from 10 so far in 2015.
Most points in a season - Historical comparisons have been made almost meaningless by the big overhaul of the points system in 2010, but for the record Hamilton would need to score an average of 21.7 points - i.e. more than a second-place finish - per race to overhaul Vettel's record 2013 tally of 397 points. A big ask.
Most poles in a row - On a sequence of five straight poles since Monaco, Hamilton needs three more to match Senna's record run from 1988-89.
A third world title - Needless to say, this is the big one...
