Hamilton equals Alonso and overtakes Mansell as Mercedes catches up with McLaren

Lewis Hamilton won the United States Grand Prix driving a Mercedes. With two races left in a season they have dominated, now is the perfect time to review the driver and team statistics.

Mercedes' dominance this year has reached historic proportions, and at the heart of it all is Lewis Hamilton's record-breaking streak. After clinching his tenth win of the season in Austin, the Briton brought his career victory total to 32, the most he has ever accumulated in a single season. The 2014 season has already eclipsed his 2008 title, when he won the championship with just five wins, and is the most prolific winning streak ever recorded in Formula 1.

This feat is all the more remarkable given that no driver who has won so many races in a single season has ever failed to win the title, a trend that could be broken by the double points rule for the final race in Brazil. If Hamilton were to lose the championship despite a victory, he would join Alain Prost (1984, 1988), Kimi Raikkonen (2005), and Michael Schumacher (2006) in the ranks of drivers who have won the most victories in a season without clinching the title.

Hamilton's victory in Austin also propelled him into the very exclusive club of the five most successful drivers in the history of the sport, overtaking Nigel Mansell after a tie in Sochi and taking the lead in the unofficial ranking of British drivers of all time. Former champion Nigel Mansell praised the performance on Twitter, calling it “brilliant for Lewis and Mercedes” and highlighting the string of five consecutive wins that brought Hamilton's career tally to 32 victories.

This victory also allowed Hamilton to catch up with his compatriot Fernando Alonso, whose last victory dates back to the 2013 Spanish Grand Prix, leaving them both with 11 wins each. To climb further up the all-time winners' list, Hamilton still has to catch up with Sebastian Vettel's 39 wins, Ayrton Senna's 41, Alain Prost's 51, and Michael Schumacher's 91.

With five consecutive Grand Prix victories this season, Hamilton joins legends such as Jack Brabham (1960), Jim Clark (1965), Nigel Mansell (1992), and Michael Schumacher (2004). If he wins the last two races, he will equal Schumacher's streak of seven consecutive wins in 2004, although Vettel's record of nine wins in 2013 remains out of reach. Historically, all drivers who have achieved a series of five consecutive wins, and even those who have won four in a row, a feat Hamilton has achieved twice this year, have gone on to be crowned champions.

On the constructors' side, Mercedes scored its tenth one-two finish of the season in Austin, equaling the record set by McLaren in 1988 with the MP4-4 driven by Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. While the 1988 season had 16 races (a one-two ratio of 62.5%), a one-two finish for Hamilton and Nico Rosberg in Brazil and Abu Dhabi would bring Mercedes' ratio to 63%, allowing the W05 Hybrid to break the record. With 14 wins already under its belt, Mercedes is just one win away from the season total recorded by McLaren's MP4-4 and Ferrari's F2002 and F2004.