Hamilton on Verstappen: 'Doing an amazing job, incredible career'

Max Verstappen faces a fine milestone this weekend. If he wins the Canadian Grand Prix, he will match Ayrton Senna's number of wins. 41 times the Brazilian national anthem sounded after a victory by the racing legend. It has been a while since Lewis Hamilton passed Senna, he recalled during the press conference ahead of the Grand Prix.

In 2017, Hamilton matched his Brazilian example in the number of pole positions conquered. The British seven-time world champion remembers snippets of that day. "It was a real honour. They gave me a helmet or something like that, a replica helmet, something like that, and so that was very cool." To be mentioned in the same breath with the phenomenon Senna remains huge for Hamilton. "For me, it was very, very surreal just that being five years old, watching with my dad, and the dream was to be like Ayrton. The dream was to get to Formula 1 and do something like him and to then find that you're matching equally in terms of results."

Hamilton praises Verstappen

The fact that Verstappen is now one win away from equalling it does not surprise the Mercedes driver. "Max has been doing an amazing job. He's had such an incredible career so far, and he's for sure going to surpass that." But the British driver would prefer to put a stop to that. "We are working on getting the car to where it needs to be so we can slow him down." Hamilton currently holds the record for most wins. Verstappen will not reach the Englishman's 103 (!) Grand Prix victories for now.