The first Mercedes F1 car to be driven to victory by seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton is going up for auction in November. In addition to competing in 14 out of the 19 events during the 2013 Formula One season, Lewis drove the car to victory at the 2013 Hungarian Grand Prix. As if there wasn’t enough significance tied to the F1 race car, it also shaped itself as a key contributor to Mercedes-AMG Petronas’ 2nd place finish in the 2013 Constructors’ Championship.
The car Hamilton drove in 14 of that season’s 19 events still wears the Mercedes-AMG Petronas’s 2013 livery. It’s also one of the last Mercedes F1 cars to feature a V-8. The following season saw a switch to V6 hybrid motors and the dawn of a spell of domination for Mercedes-AMG and Hamilton, with the British driver winning six of the next seven F1 World Championships.
Hamilton’s Mercedes F1 car will be auctioned off on the afternoon of Friday in collaboration with Wynn Las Vegas on Nov. 17. RM Sotheby’s expects the vehicle to sell for between $10 million and $15 million. This is said to be the only publicly available ex-Hamilton Mercedes F1 car, as all other examples are owned by either the German race team, its principal Toto Wolff or Hamilton himself. Even if the car sells at the high-end of that estimate, it won’t be the most expensive F1 racer. That title belongs to Juan Manuel Fangio’s 1954 Mercedes W196, which sold for $29.6 million in 2013.