Lewis Hamilton is bidding to win a record eighth title in the 2025 season – but Jacques Villeneuve has insisted it is not possible to consider the British star or any driver as the greatest in the sport because “you can’t compare eras”
Lewis Hamilton has been warned he can never be considered the GOAT of Formula One because it’s too difficult to compare modern day cars to the previous generation, according to former champion Jacques Villeneuve.
Hamilton is considered one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time after equalling Michael Schumacher’s record of seven world title wins with both McLaren and Mercedes.
The 40-year-old, who now drives for Ferrari after ending his 12-year spell with Mercedes, is bidding to break the record in the 2025 season while wearing red colours.
But Villeneuve, who won the F1 world title win Williams in 1997, believes no driver can go down as the greatest driver ever because there is “too much evolution” of cars and races throughout history, stating that the numbers are “skewered”.
“There’s never the greatest of all time,” he told Action Network. “There’s too much evolution with the cars, it’s too different.
“If you take someone like Jackie Stewart, he’s impressive because he won three championships in the day where he had two, three or five drivers would die a year or get really hurt and with cars that would break down in half of the races.
“Yet he still managed to win a lot. Same thing with Fittipaldi and so on. In a way three championships then is probably more impressive than five or six now.
“Also, when you get a superior car now, you end up winning almost 24 races instead of 15 because there’s 10 more races in the calendar than there used to be. So, the numbers are skewered as well. The overall number of points you get; a win is 25 points. It used to be 8, then 9, then 10. So that skewers it as well. You can’t compare eras.”
Hamilton was unveiled by Ferrari at their Maranello base this week, with the British driver claiming he had “the best feelings of my life” after making his test debut for the new team.
He said: “I’ve been lucky enough to have many firsts in my career, from the first test to the first race, podium, win and championship, so I wasn’t sure how many more firsts I would have, but driving a Ferrari car for the first time this morning was one of the best feelings of my life,” said Hamilton, who made his F1 debut in 2007.
“When I started the car up and drove through that garage door, I had the biggest smile on my face. It reminded me of the very first time I tested a Formula One car. It was such an exciting and special moment and here I am, almost 20 years later, feeling those emotions all over again.”