With 7 titles, Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton have both won the same number of F1 world championships. Even though everything Schumacher touched has turned to gold in recent years, it seems that the Englishman’s cars are now more valuable in the eyes of collectors than those of the German.
During the RM Sotheby’s auction, held at Winn during the weekend of F1’s great return to Las Vegas, the Mercedes-AMG Petronas W04 2023 by Lewis Hamilton was sold for the tidy sum of US$18,815,000.
This legendary car was associated with no less than 14 of Hamilton’s 19 races during the 2013 season. However, it was especially with this car that he won a first Grand Prix driving a Mercedes-AMG on the 28th. July 2013, in Hungary.
The 2013 season also marked the end of the era of naturally aspirated V8s in F1. From the 2014 season, we switched to the V6. The W04’s 2.4-liter V8 develops no less than 750 horsepower at 18,000 rpm. This point adds to the value of the car.
Generally speaking, Mercedes-AMG retains almost all of its F1 cars with the exception of a few vehicles owned by Toto Wolff or Lewis Hamilton himself. This sale is therefore an extremely rare event, and it is very unlikely that it will happen again.
The auction held by RM Sotheby’s took place on November 17 at the Winn Hotel in Las Vegas as part of the many activities surrounding the great return of F1 to the American gaming capital. The sale price was estimated between $10 and $15 million USD.
It is therefore surprising that the price reached US$18,815,000, the equivalent of CA$25,812,000. The last record for an F1 car in the modern era belonged to the 2003 Ferrari F1-GA driven by Michael Schumacher in his 6e title of world champion in 2003. Sold in 2022 in Switzerland, it found a buyer for as much as US$14.9 million, or CA$20,440,000.
Although the value of the 2023 Mercedes-AMG Petronas W04 is impressive, it only ranks 2e place in the list of racing cars in value. The record is still held by a Mercedes-Benz, but the 1954 W196R driven by the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio. It was sold in July 2013 for US$29.6 million.
The most funny thing about this story is the fact that this sale was made barely a few days before the 1D victory for Lewis Hamilton at the wheel of the Mercedes-AMG W04 at the 2013 Hungarian Grand Prix.
