By Amber Huang

It’s the Formula One offseason, which means there’s nothing better to do than write about it in unrelated media outlets. I’ll take any chance I get to talk about this cool little sport where an energy drink company and a plethora of luxury car manufacturers spend hundreds of millions of dollars to drive in circles for two hours on Sundays. (Find me if you have opinions about anything in F1! I have so many!)

So what does F1 have to do with fashion? Is it the race suits? Team-branded polos? Red Bull’s clothing line? No, it’s seven-time (eight? if you know you know) World Champion, 103-time race winner, Mercedes-AMG driver Sir Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton is one of the best drivers in the history of the sport, tied for the most championships ever, with the highest number of race wins in F1. In recent years, Hamilton has also been making the race track his runway, arriving to race weekends each day in capital F Fits in contrast to the team polos worn by most other drivers.

There were 22 races during the 2022 F1 season, each with three practice sessions, and a qualifying session, as well as the actual race – with the respective events spanning the whole weekend, Friday-Sunday. With a new fit for each track day, this comes out to 66 outfits, not including testing days (days early in the F1 season when teams test their new designs). Since I can’t include all 66+ fits, so I’m going to show some from this season as it came to a close in Abu Dhabi.

I have to start with one of Hamilton’s outfits from Bahrain for a couple reasons. First, Bahrain was the first race of the season, and it was where we got to see which teams managed to get the car development game right. However, this fit is special to me because I bought those exact boots after seeing Hamilton in them. These are the Virón 1992 Contrast boots, with vegan leather made with apple skin waste and a recycled rubber sole. The boots have a cheeky “ingredient label” on the side that tells you the composition of each part of the shoe. I went through quite an emotional journey trying to buy these boots and they’re absolutely worth it.

Fit number two is this Ferrari-red Jacquemus suit Hamilton wore to the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix. I need you to know that everyone else on the grid shows up to race weekends in the boring prescription of branded team polo and jeans/khakis/whatever other business casual pants exist for men. Remember when I mentioned how Red Bull, the energy drink company, makes clothes? It’s an unfortunate line of the men’s warehouse “business casual” that we have seen on men for the past 50 years. I also have a theory that Max Verstappen, current F1 World Champion and Red Bull driver, only owns two shirts. Sir Lewis Hamilton could never. This is Sir Lewis’s world, and we’re just living in it.

Miami was a new addition to the F1 race circuit this year, and Hamilton’s outfit to the track constructed in the Miami Dolphins’ stadium parking lot (yes, the parking lot – there was also a fake marina with boats but no water) did not disappoint. The sunglasses! The jewelry! The Bianca Saunder FW 2022 top! I may have fallen asleep during the Miami Grand Prix, but I wasn’t sleeping on this fit.

Bonus fit from last year! As a lover of big and puffy windbreakers, this tire warmer-as-a-jacket outfit absolutely slayed. F1 teams use tire warmers to heat their tires up to their optimal working temperature before races and on a chilly day at the Italian Grand Prix, Hamilton wrapped himself up in a comfy-looking tire warmer. Unfortunately, this isn’t an outfit I’ll be able to replicate as tire warmers are on their way out in F1 through the sport’s efforts to reduce its carbon footprint.

The 2022 F1 season ended with Max Verstappen and Red Bull mathematically clinching the championship and me sobbing at 9:30am on a Sunday after the last race because some of my favorite drivers won’t be racing next year. But Hamilton is contracted through 2023 and has no plans to leave F1, so we’ll be seeing more of him this year – hopefully with a better car (looking at you, Mercedes)!