Photo: Liauzh via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0, cropped.
Vegan Formula One legend Lewis Hamilton has won his first Grand Prix for Ferrari, taking the chequered flag at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix today (Sunday, June 14) at the age of 41.
Hamilton finished 19.561 seconds ahead of George Russell, with Lando Norris third in the first all-British podium since 1968. Ferrari gambled on a three-stop strategy in track temperatures above 50 Celsius, and Hamilton picked up a free pit stop under a Virtual Safety Car before pulling clear on fresh tires. The win ended Mercedes' unbeaten start to the 2026 season and was his first victory since Belgium in 2024.
It was also his seventh win at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, more than anyone in history, overtaking Michael Schumacher's six. According to beIN Sports, it makes him the seventh-oldest driver ever to win a Grand Prix, and it cuts Kimi Antonelli's championship lead to 41 points.
After a tough first year in red, Hamilton was overwhelmed:
How do you find the right words to express an emotion that's beyond your wildest dreams? I truly believed in my decision in joining Ferrari. I truly believed in what this team could achieve, what we could achieve together. And I know it started out with lots of excitement and then lots of doubt and lots of negativity that followed through a whole year. My fans really rescued me last year, my family also, and friends that stuck with me through it all.
He told Sky Sports F1 he had been having this dream since he was a kid, remembering Schumacher winning at the same track for Ferrari in 1996.
Hamilton went vegan in 2017 for the animals and for his health, and he has never looked back. He told GQ Hype back in 2020 that the big highs and lows in his energy levels had disappeared: "Veganism has eradicated that." On the idea that he might be giving his rivals an edge, he was blunt: "That's a free advantage I'm going to take. If no one else wants it, well that's their loss."
Plenty of people still believe you need meat to compete at the top level. A 41-year-old winning on a track hotter than 50 degrees, against drivers less than half his age, says otherwise. The science agrees: research in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found plant protein builds muscle just as well as animal protein.
Hamilton joins a long line of plant-powered winners we've covered, from Nate Diaz beating Conor McGregor and heavyweight boxer David Haye to Olympic weightlifter Kendrick Farris and Novak Djokovic winning his 24th Grand Slam at 36. We were there when Hamilton won his sixth world title and opened a plant-based burger chain in 2019, and when he won his first race in Ferrari red at the Shanghai sprint last year. Now he has the big one.
No meat, no problem.