Mercedes Benz Media
Lewis Hamilton has just one race left for Mercedes before he moves to Ferrari in 2025.
But a suprising statistic has emerged about his time at Mercedes since George Russell has been his teammate.
Hamilton's Mercedes Legacy
Lewis Hamilton has been racing for the Mercedes Formula 1 team since 2013. When the current season ends after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix this weekend he’ll have been part of the Silver Arrows squad for 12 years.
In that time he’s taken 6 World Championship titles and a staggering 84 victories. His relationship with Mercedes actually began over 26 years ago in 1998, when he received a call from Ron Dennis offering him a role in the McLaren-Mercedes young driver programme that would help him on his way to F1.
What Hamilton and Mercedes have achieved together has been unprecedented. As Mercedes F1 team manager Toto Wolff said ahead of this weekend’s final race, “Our relationship is a legacy that transcends our sport, with a lasting impact beyond the racetrack.”
Hamilton and Russell teammates
During his stint at Mercedes, Hamilton has had three different teammates.
The first was Nico Rosberg, Lewis’ life-long friend and racing rival. Their time together on the F1 grid was full of tension, culiminating in the finale of the 2016 season. Rosberg beat Lewis to the title by just five points at the last race, and then suprised everyone by announcing his retirement from the sport just a few days later.
Image licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Lewis’ second teammate was Valttering Bottas. The Flying Finn always played second-fiddle, being the perfect wingman for Hamilton’s run of 4 straight titles from 2017 to 2020.
For the last three seasons Lewis has been teammates with George Russell. George was part of Mercedes’ young-driver lineup and made the step up to Silver Arrows from the Williams F1 team. He joined amidst the Red Bull and Max Verstappen dominance, but has taken 3 wins.
Now, a suprising statistic has emerged about Lewis and George’s time together at Mercedes.
Lewis and George are equal on points
Lewis is considered by many to be one of the GOATs. George Russell is not quite in the same camp just yet. So this statistic is pretty surprising.
Let’s look at the number of points each driver has scored since they’ve both been at Mercedes since the beginning of 2022:
| Points scored over last 3 seasons | ||
|---|---|---|
| Season | George Russell | Lewis Hamilton |
| 2022 | 275 | 240 |
| 2023 | 175 | 234 |
| 2024 | 235 | 211 |
| Total | 685 | 685 |
Yep, you read that right. Coming in to the final race of their time together at Mercedes, both drivers have scored the exact same number of points, 685, over the last three seasons.
When George joined Mercedes most people, myself included, assumed Lewis would really show him up. But that isn’t the case. George has gone toe-to-toe with the 7 time champ and more than held his own.
It would be amazing for this statistic to finish this way, but we have one race left. The only way that can happen is if both drivers finish out of the points, or if one finishes P9 and the other finishes P10 with fastest lap. Then both drivers will get an additional 2 points and finish on an equal 687 points.
For reference, in the same three year period Max Verstappen has scored an unbelievable 1,458 points, more than both of the Mercedes driver’s totals put together.
Interestingly in the same period Lando Norris has scored 676 points, just 9 less than both of the Mercedes drivers. If both Lewis and George finish out of the points at Abu Dhabi and Lando gets 6th plus the fastest lap, all three of them will end up on the same 3-year total points.
Carlos Sainz has scored 718 points for Ferrari since the start of 2022, and his teammate Charles Leclerc has scored 855 points.
George vs Lewis
Let’s look at some other metrics of how the teammates have stacked up against each other during this period.
| Head-to-Head over last 3 seasons | ||
|---|---|---|
| George Russell | Lewis Hamilton | |
| Wins | 3 | 2 |
| Podiums | 14 | 20 |
| Poles | 5 | 1 |
| Fastest Laps | 7 | 8 |
| Qualifying head-to-head | 38 | 29 |
| Race head-to-head | 34 | 30 |
On four out of these 6 metrics, George has out-performed Lewis. He’s had more wins, more poles and beaten Lewis more times in both qualifying and race results.
So however the Abu Dhabi GP plays out, and whatever total number of points they end up on, there’s no doubt George has held his own against one of the greatest ever drivers.
Props to Traceurity on Reddit for highlighting this stat.
