Racing
© Liauzh
Lewis Hamilton’s first Formula 1 victory for Ferrari at the 2026 Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix did more than end his wait for a win in red, as it set a new record of 19 years and 4 days between his first and most recent grand prix triumphs.
That extends the longest winning career in Formula 1 history beyond the previous benchmark held by Kimi Raikkonen. Raikkonen’s span ran 15 years, 6 months and 28 days, from the 2003 Malaysian Grand Prix to the 2018 United States Grand Prix. Hamilton had already owned the record through his wins in Britain and Belgium in 2024, but Barcelona pushed it to a distance that now looks even more difficult to match.
The scale of the milestone comes from how far apart the two ends of Hamilton’s winning timeline are. His first win arrived in only his sixth Formula 1 start, at the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix for McLaren. This latest success came in his 20th season in the championship and his 381st grand prix, underlining a level of competitiveness that has stretched across eras, regulations and now teams.
Barcelona also added another layer to Hamilton’s career numbers. The Ferrari victory was his 106th in Formula 1, extending his own all-time wins record, and it made him the 16th driver to win races for three different teams. His total is now split across 21 wins for McLaren, 84 for Mercedes and one for Ferrari.
That made the result significant not just for Hamilton, but for Ferrari too. The win was the team’s 250th grand prix triumph, linking one of the most decorated drivers in the sport’s history with one of its defining constructors in a result that immediately carried statistical weight beyond a single Sunday.
The age angle was just as striking. Hamilton became the oldest Formula 1 race winner since Jack Brabham in 1970. The Barcelona result was also described as making him the seventh-oldest winner of all time, and, under a stricter interpretation that excludes certain atypical historic cases, the fourth-oldest driver to win a Formula 1 world championship race outright.
Taken together, those numbers sharpen the importance of the breakthrough. Hamilton’s first Ferrari win was always going to be a major moment, but by pairing it with a record 19-year winning span and a 106th career victory, he turned it into another statement about longevity at the top level of Formula 1 while giving Ferrari a landmark 250th grand prix success.