Lewis Hamilton is not only the most successful F1 driver statistically but is the second oldest one on the current grid. He is going to be racing his 300th race in a career that now spans more than 15 years. On the eve of his 300th race weekend, Hamilton has selected Fernando Alonso as his toughest rival on track.
“I think it’s difficult to say who has necessarily been the strongest competitor. Because every time you’re with someone, you’re in a different place in your life. I remember the task of being alongside Fernando when I was 22. I was so young mentally and, of course, okay in terms of skill, but it’s a lot of pressure to go up against a great like Fernando. I would say on pure pace, Fernando [is the toughest]. We had some good battles,” said the 7-time world champion.
Alonso is the only driver on the current grid who is older than him and has more race weekends under his belt. He recently became the most experienced driver in the history of F1 overtaking the record held by Brazilian Rubens Barrichello.
Alonso notably was also Hamilton’s first teammate in a tumultuous 2007 season. At the time, Hamilton was a prodigy who walked into a highly competitive McLaren while Alonso was also joining the team from Renault where he became the reigning 2-time world champion after dethroning the great Michael Schumacher twice leading to the German’s retirement.
Alonso at the time was the biggest thing in F1 arguably with Kimi Raikkonen whom he had replaced at McLaren. But the Spaniard had been shell-shocked by the performance of the rookie Hamilton who matched him from the get-go.
For the large part of the season, it seemed like the Briton would have the better of the two-time world champion, but their tussles gave a widow of opportunity to Kimi Raikkonen who beat them both combing from behind in the last race of the season winning the world championship for Ferrari and himself.
Ferrari and Raikkonen never won a world title after that. Nor did Alonso win a world championship despite missing on it two times more on the last race of the season when he shifted to Ferrari.
Of course, the season after 2007, Alonso left McLaren because of Hamilton’s presence and returned to Renault and Hamilton won his first crown in 2008 edging out Ferrari’s Felipe Massa.
Hamilton after his first time would have to wait 6 more years for success when he joined Mercedes replacing Michael Schumacher who had returned in 2010. Since the advent of the turbo hybrid era of F1 in 2014, Hamilton has been an unstoppable force and has broken records for the most race wins, and most pole positions and tied the record for most world championships.
He has thrice not won a world championship since joining Mercedes in 2013 — in 2013 when Sebastian Vettel won his last title for Red Bull, in 2016 when his teammate Nico Rosberg won his one and only world title before retiring and last year when Max Verstappen beat him to the punch.
In fact, in the last 30 years both Hamilton and Schumacher have won a race each. But that pattern could be broken this year as Hamilton is in a rather uncompetitive Mercedes and is P6 in the driver's championship behind his teammate George Russell.
Mercedes is working on a big update for the Paul Ricard circuit where many believe they will be closer to the Ferrari and Red Bull cars and if that is the case, the 37-year-old may have sniff for a win with 11 races still remaining in the season.
For Alonso, life in F1 has been tough since he left Ferrari in 2014. He came close to winning in 2010 and 2012 but lost out narrowly to Vettel, but frankly, those Ferrari cars at the time weren't competitive and it was Alonso's grit that forced them ahead. His 2012 finish in P2 is considered to be one of the greatest seasons by an F1 driver. He last won a race in 2013, but when he returned to F1 after a hiatus of two years last year we could see that the Fernando of old was very much there even in his 40s.
After Ferrari, Alonso returned to McLaren in an ill-fated project with Honda where he was saddled on the last row for four years. He decided to leave F1 and gave a shot at IndyCar and WEC where he won LeMans twice and also won the Daytona race. Last season despite the Alpine car he drives these days being not as fast as the Mercedes of Hamilton he duelled with the Briton on worn-out tyres of over 10 laps to thwart him for long enough as his teammate Esteban Ocon got his maiden win in Hungary.
