Jackie Stewart questions if Lewis Hamilton is actually a better driver than Vettel

Formula 1 legend Sir Jackie Stewart thinks the strength of Mercedes has been integral to Lewis Hamilton's success in recent years, as the three-time F1 champion dubs Hamilton "a very lucky boy" for being at the Silver Arrows.

Hamilton's dominance in recent years has been quite overwhelming, with the 34-year-old winning four of the last five championships, only losing out to his teammate Nico Rosberg in 2016. 

Mercedes have continued their dominance in 2019, winning all three races so far this season. Hamilton won two of those three.

“Mercedes have committed such a lot of money, and have secured so many talented engineers and specialists," Stewart exclusively told Mirror Sport.

“Thousands of people working for them to make Hamilton and [Valtteri] Bottas drive cars that are, again, considerably better and faster than Ferrari or any other competitors.

“We need that to change. We need Red Bull. We need Ferrari. We need some of the new teams to come up and seriously be competitive.

“The financial support they have had is probably well above any of the other teams including Ferrari or Red Bull. They’ve not only got a fantastic car and chassis, but they’ve got a fantastic power unit.

“Lewis is a very lucky boy to be in a position to have such enormous support behind him.”

Stewart then explained that he thinks Hamilton's move to Mercedes in 2013, one year before the turbo-hybrid era began, is the main reason for his tremendous success. However, the Scot is not sure how good the Brit is as a pure driver compared to other drivers.

“What Lewis has done is moved at the right time to Mercedes. Of course he’s a very good driver. But is he better than Sebastian Vettel?

“Or as good as Fernando Alonso, Alain Prost, Jim Clark, Ayrton Senna, Schumacher or Jackie Stewart were? Who knows? You can’t really judge that.”