F1 legend Lewis Hamilton fading away at Ferrari after Max Verstappen masterstroke

Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 Legends

Lewis Hamilton fading away at Ferrari after Max Verstappen masterstroke

Max Verstappen picked up a sixth career grand slam

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Tuesday 23 September 2025 18:57

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Lewis Hamilton's position on an all-time F1 list is under serious threat from Max Verstappen.

Seven-time champion Hamilton is statistically speaking the most successful F1 driver in history, leading the all-time lists for race wins, pole positions and podiums, while also having won the joint-most amount of world championships alongside Michael Schumacher.

However, Verstappen is coming close on a number of those fronts at just 27 years old, and now the Dutchman has drawn level with Hamilton for one particular career statistic.

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Verstappen's masterclass of a weekend at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix last time out was his sixth career grand slam, equalling Hamilton and moving up to joint-second on the all-time list with the Brit.

A grand slam in F1 is when a driver claims a pole position, leads every lap of the race, claims the fastest lap and wins the race, something Hamilton last managed at the 2019 Abu Dhabi GP, and only on five previous occasions before that.

The 40-year-old has not come close to doing that in the last four seasons, and has even failed to claim a single podium in 2025 since joining Ferrari back in January.

All of Verstappen's grand slams have come in the last five seasons, however, with his first being the 2021 Austrian GP.

Just 5.7 per cent of Hamilton's career wins have been grand slams, while nine per cent of Verstappen's have been, but both of those statistics show quite how hard it is to achieve even for two of the best drivers in modern history.

Who tops the list of F1 grand slams?

However, former British racer and two-time F1 world champion Jim Clark's record makes a mockery of both Verstappen and Hamilton.

Clark leads the all-time list of F1 grand slams with eight, but he only achieved 25 career race victories in comparison to Hamilton's 105 and Verstappen's 67.

That means that a whopping 32 per cent of Clark's grand prix victories were won as part of a grand slam, with Lotus the dominant team of his era.

At just 27 years old, you would back Verstappen to add more to his tally in the remainder of his career, while Hamilton will also be hoping he can with Ferrari.

The 40-year-old is looking for his first grand prix victory with the Scuderia in 2025, before heading into a 2026 season in which new regulations may just allow for a turnaround in fortunes for both he and Ferrari.

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