Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsOpinion

Hamilton can challenge Schumacher record - Mansell

Nigel Mansell believes Lewis Hamilton can challenge Michael Schumacher's record of seven drivers' championships if he remains motivated.

Hamilton secured his third drivers' title in 2015, making it back-to-back championships for the 30-year-old as he makes the most of Mercedes' dominance. Mansell believes it is hard to compare drivers across different eras in terms of who is better but told F1i Hamilton has the potential to go on and challenge Schumacher's benchmark of seven titles.

Asked who is the greatest British F1 driver of all time, Mansell replied: "The thing is you’ve got to set your parameters.

"When you ask a question like that, who is the outright racer of all time? That’s one answer. Who is the most successful all-time British race car driver? Lewis would jump straight out, no problem at all. And I think you’ve just go to balance the question. Ask a specific question and I can say James Hunt, Jackie Stewart, Lewis Hamilton, myself, Damon [Hill] because we’re all British champions and of course Jenson Button too.

"It would be very unkind to say to any of those world champions that they haven’t done a very good job in the year that they won it, because they all did. But if you want to just simplify it and say who is the most successful British race car driver of all time, to me I don’t have any problem at all saying it’s Lewis Hamilton.

"As an all-time great in Formula One I think there is some time to go because Michael put a benchmark down of seven but I think Lewis can really challenge that. The only limitation is going to be himself and having the desire to keep on pushing."

Hamilton has previously stated he currently plans on racing until he is 37, saying: "I probably have another seven maybe or eight years."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.