A win like no other for Hamilton: 'I've never cried coming from a win'
Lewis Hamilton ended his 945 days without a win last Sunday when he finished first in at the British Grand Prix. Hamilton had failed to win a race since 2021, making his ninth home win rather special. In Sunday's post-race conference, he revealed what made this race win very different to the other 103 he has.
The Mercedes driver holds the record for the most race wins in F1 history, with his total becoming 104 on Sunday. After 2.5 years without a win, the Brit was visibly emotional as he passed the chequered flag at Silverstone. Nevertheless, Hamilton revealed that this win felt different to the rest, "It feels different to previous races and particularly races where you're having race after race after race or seasons where you're having multiple wins," he said. "I think with the kind of the adversity I would say that we've gone through as a team and that I personally felt, that I've experienced, those challenges, the constant challenge like we all have to get out of bed every day and give it our best shot."
What made Hamilton's win different from the rest?
The seven-time world champion has previously been honest about the struggles he faced since 2021 when he missed out on his eighth world championship title to Max Verstappen. It was since this season that he had not won a race. His team, had also struggled since then, with their last race win being in 2022 prior to Russell's win in Austria this season. At the end of the season, he will leave Mercedes for Ferrari. Thus, this was his last home race with the team.
On Sunday, as he broke the record for the most wins at a single circuit, Hamilton expressed the issues he had faced: "There's so many times where you feel like your best shot is just not good enough," the Mercedes driver revealed. "There's definitely been moments where I thought that this was it, that it was never going to happen again. So to have this feeling come across the line, I think, honestly, I've never cried coming from a win. It just came out of me. It's a really, really great feeling. I'm very, very grateful for it," he concluded.