Lewis Hamilton’s First Race-Winning Mercedes F1 Car Could Fetch $15 Million at Auction
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Here’s your chance to buy one of the most important race cars from Lewis Hamilton’s illustrious career.
The Formula 1 car that the seven-time champion drove to his first victory after joining the Mercedes-AMG Petronas team will be auctioned off by RM Sotheby’s before the Las Vegas Grand Prix next month. If that wasn’t enough to pique your interest, it’s the only race car from Hamilton’s time with the team that you can buy for the foreseeable future.
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It’s hard to fathom now, but when Hamilton signed with Mercedes prior to the 2013 season, it was considered a gamble. He’d won his first driver’s title and 21 races during his six seasons with McLaren, whereas Mercedes had no recent success to speak of. Six titles and 82 wins later, and it’s clear Hamilton chose wisely. And this car, chassis W04, is the one that he drove to his first (and sole) victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix during his inaugural season with the team.
The car Hamilton drove in 14 of that season’s 19 events still wears the Mercedes-AMG Petronas’s 2013 livery. It’s also one of the last Mercedes F1 cars to feature a V-8 before the series mandated that teams switch to a turbo-charged V-6. The mill and the rest of the drive train are still present in the vehicle, which is a rarity for a decommissioned race car, according to Bloomberg. It’s also the only one of Hamilton’s Mercedes F1 cars that isn’t owned by the German marque, team principal Toto Wolff, or the driver himself.
“Given the unparalleled lineage and being the sole example outside of Mercedes’ origination publicly available, the pairing of Lewis and the W04 elevates it beyond just a Formula 1 car,” Shelby Myers, RM Sotheby’s global head of private sales, said in a statement. “This undeniable piece could emerge as one of the most coveted collectibles in the foreseeable future.”
Hamilton’s Mercedes F1 car will be auctioned off on the afternoon of Friday, Nov. 17, in Las Vegas. RM Sotheby’s expects the vehicle to sell for between $10 million and $15 million. Even if the car sells at the high-end of that estimate, it won’t be the most expensive F1 racer. That title belongs to Juan Manuel Fangio’s 1954 Mercedes W196, which sold for $29.6 million in 2013.
Click here for more photos of Lewis Hamilton’s first race-winning Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 car.
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