The exclusive club of F1 legends that Lewis Hamilton will NEVER join

Lewis Hamilton

The exclusive club of F1 legends that Lewis Hamilton will NEVER join

It's Lewis Hamilton's 41st birthday today!

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Wednesday 7 January 2026 17:56

Ferrari F1 star Lewis Hamilton is known for transcending the sport and breaking a plethora of all-time records across his illustrious racing career.

But there's one group of F1 legends that he will never be able to join.

Hamilton leads the way in terms of the all-time lists of race victories, pole positions and podiums in F1, and is one of only two men to have won seven world championship titles. So statistically speaking, he is the most successful driver in the history of the sport.

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And as he turns 41 today - many happy returns Lewis - he is still going strong, about to head into a completely new era of F1 and try and challenge for yet more accolades to add to his CV.

But there is one F1 record that is just not accessible to Hamilton simply because of when he was born, bad planning by his parents!

It's an accolade that so far only British F1 legend James Hunt and former Ferrari star Jean Alesi have achieved, and poor old Hamilton will never even get the chance to join that exclusive club.

Of course, it's F1 drivers to have won a race on their birthday!

Hamilton's birth date of January 7 means that his birthday always falls during F1's mandatory winter break, and there has never been a grand prix held on that date in F1's 75 years.

Of course, in the future, the calendar might drastically change and we have races even in January, but that is extremely unlikely to happen within the next five years, and Hamilton is approaching the end of his time in the sport.

I can see it now, a 70-year-old Hamilton coming out of retirement for the 2055 F1 season just to see if he can join Hunt and Alesi by claiming a win on January 7 at the 2055 Mars Grand Prix.

How many drivers have won an F1 race on their birthday?

Just the two. Hunt was celebrating his 29th birthday at the 1976 Dutch Grand Prix, and he stormed to victory, beating Ferrari's Clay Regazzoni. It would turn out to be a very happy birthday for the Brit as less than two months later he was celebrating his first and only world championship title.

For Alesi, his 31st birthday was made incredibly special by the fact that he achieved his maiden grand prix win at the Canadian Grand Prix on June 11 1995. Alesi had been racing for five seasons at that stage, and had been desperately hoping to claim a grand prix win with the Maranello-based outfit.

As it happened, that would turn out to be Alesi's only victory in his F1 career, as he moved to Benetton in 1996 and then on to Sauber.

How many drivers have led an F1 race on their birthday?

Now this list opens up a little bit, but it's still one that Hamilton will not be able to get himself onto.

There are seven other drivers - on top of the two above who have won on their birthdays - who have led at least one lap of an F1 race on their birthday.

The most recent was Alex Albon at the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix, on his 29th birthday.

His current Williams team-mate Carlos Sainz is also on the list, leading the 2024 Italian Grand Prix while racing for Ferrari on his 30th birthday.

The other five drivers to have achieved this feat in F1 history are Max Verstappen (2018 Russian GP), Sebastian Vettel (2016 Austrian GP), Heikki Kovalainen (2008 Chinese GP), Mika Hakkinen (1997 Luxembourg GP) and Clay Regazzoni (1971 Italian GP).

F1 Lewis Hamilton James Hunt Jean Alesi