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Lewis Hamilton would go down as one of the greatest drivers ever in F1. The driver debuted in 2007 and has been a blockbuster ever since. Statistically, he's crushed every benchmark posed to him. Hamilton is level with Michael Schumacher on the most titles in F1, he has the most wins, among other record-breaking feats on the grid.
In the eyes of many, Lewis Hamilton has been looked at as the greatest to ever drive an F1 car as well. There's certainly merit to the argument and the kind of reverence that the Brit commands; it's unmistakable how he's perceived in the sport.
With that being said, his partnership with Charles Leclerc comes at a pivotal point in his career. He's achieved a lot in the sport, but if his Ferrari partnership ends without the success that he's aspiring for and he ends up losing to his teammate, the claim of being 'GOAT' in F1 would come to an end.
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Charles Leclerc would be the 4th teammate that beat Lewis Hamilton
Charles Leclerc is the 7th career teammate for Lewis Hamilton. Before him, it was Fernando Alonso, Heikki Kovalainen, Jenson Button, Nico Rosberg, Valtteri Bottas, and George Russell. Out of these 6 teammates, George, Jenson, and Nico have gotten the better of Lewis over a season.
If Leclerc ends up beating Hamilton over a season, then that would make it four different drivers out of seven that have gotten the better of the 7x champion. When you're talking about a driver who is the greatest of all time, shouldn't that driver be heads and shoulders over everyone in the history of the sport?
And if that is the case, should he be losing to 4 out of the seven teammates in his career? It's already a massive indictment on the driver, but losing out to Leclerc would just seal the deal.
He would also fail where Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso did
One thing that tends to put Lewis Hamilton on a higher pedestal than his contemporaries Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso is the fact that he was arguably the only one of the trio who changed teams and made it work. Fernando Alonso's success came early in his career at Renault, and when the Spaniard moved from that team to others, title success deserted him.
Sebastian Vettel's success came with Red Bull, and when he moved on, success did not follow. What stands out for both Alonso and Vettel, however, is that the duo spent multiple years at Ferrari, the most iconic team on the grid, and couldn't succeed.
If Lewis Hamilton goes to the same team and fails, then this aspect of supremacy compared to his contemporaries gets nullified.
Statistics alone cannot be a measure of how good a driver is
Finally, the most important thing during a debate on the 'GOAT' in F1 is that statistics alone are not the best measure of greatness. Formula 1 is a team/car-dependent sport more often than not. If you had a faster car throughout your career, you would have a better result as well.
This has precisely been the difference between Lewis Hamilton and his contemporaries as well as the driver of the past. There have been more years where he's had the best car on the grid, and hence he holds the records.
Claiming that Lewis Hamilton is the 'GOAT' purely based on statistics is not the right approach in a sport where car performance is such a crucial factor.
