Lewis Hamilton Mercedes F1 car to be auctioned in Las Vegas

Auctions of ultra-rare vehicles are becoming increasingly glitzy affairs, as demonstrated by the fact that a Ferrari 250 GTO will cross the block at Sotheby’s New York on November 13, not in a car event but as a special lot in the firm’s flagship contemporary art sale [see Matters of Moment, November].

And there are few venues more glitzy than the shamelessly over-the-top Wynn Las Vegas resort (with its 4748 rooms, $130m fake mountain with man-made greenery and four giant swimming pools), which might explain why RM Sotheby’s has chosen it as the place to sell Lewis Hamilton’s first race-winning Mercedes Formula 1 car two days before this year’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Hamilton was a mere one-time world champion when he was signed to the team in 2013 and handed the ‘keys’ of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 W04 featured here – a car in which he achieved a single but significant victory, taking the chequered flag at the Hungarian Grand Prix an impressive 11 seconds ahead of second-placed Kimi Räikkönen.

But while it was the following season that Hamilton’s rise to true greatness really began when he racked up 11 of the Silver Arrows’ 16 wins, it’s difficult to overstate the importance of W04’s role as the springboard to his subsequent six Formula 1 world championship titles.

Not so long ago, modern F1 cars were of relatively little value because there were fewer people who were both interested in buying them and who had the means to pay for their running and maintenance.

An ever-rising number of billionaire car fans has changed all that, along with the fact that there are now far more opportunities to drive them.

And surely a ‘holy grail’ for anyone who wants a (reasonably) contemporary F1 car is to secure one used to win a key race by a driver whom many regard as being among the greatest of all time.

Add the fact that very few modern Mercedes F1 cars have escaped captivity (this one has been based in Europe in the hands of a private owner for several years) and the status of the marque as the maker of the top-selling car in history – the Uhlenhaut Coupé that fetched £114.4m last year – and the likelihood of the £12m top estimate for W04 being surpassed begins to seem more probable than possible.

If that’s a theory that sounds too bonkers, take a look at Wynn Las Vegas for a reminder of just how mad the world has become.

2013 Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 W04.
On sale with RM Sotheby’s, Las Vegas, US, November 17.
Estimate: £8m-£12m.