NÜRBURG, Germany — Even Lewis Hamilton once saw Michael Schumacher’s record of 91 wins in Formula 1 as unbeatable. Now he’s matched it. Schumacher’s son, Mick, presented Hamilton with one of his father’s old helmets after the British driver took a record-tying 91st win at Germany’s Eifel Grand Prix.

“Seeing his dominance, I don’t think anyone, and especially me, didn’t imagine that I’d be anywhere near Michael in terms of records so it’s an incredible honor and it’s going to take some time to get used to,” Hamilton said, adding that he used to choose Schumacher as his character when playing a video game. “That number’s so big and when it’s so far away it’s hard for people to perhaps fully understand how hard it was for him to go those 91 wins, to deliver weekend in and weekend out, year on year on year and stay so physically in shape and so precise. So I understand that now more than ever,” Hamilton said. “And I can only tell you that it doesn’t get easier from your first win to 91st. I’m telling you, it’s been a long, hard run.” Schumacher has required constant care since he sustained severe head injuries in an accident while skiing in 2013. Hamilton took a big step closer to matching Schumacher’s record of seven titles, too, after his teammate Valtteri Bottas failed to finish with an engine problem. Hamilton now leads the Formula 1 championship by 69 points with six races to go.

It was a Formula One season in which Mercedes started off perfectly, but by the conclusion it was obvious that it did not consistently have the best car. That is giving other teams hope for next season. Mercedes scored five successive one-two finishes in the opening five grands prix. Toto Wolff, the team principal, said it was “five fantastic performances.” He also said it was “not realistic” to expect the results to continue. He was right. Mercedes set a record, winning constructors’ and drivers’ titles for a sixth successive year. Its top driver, Lewis Hamilton of Britain, won his fifth championship with the team and his sixth over all. Despite its continued dominance, winning 15 of the season’s 21 races, Mercedes won only five of the final nine grands prix after the sport’s summer break in August, for a winning percentage of 56 percent, compared with 83 percent before the break. Ferrari won three races and Red Bull one in the second half.

“You can see the top three teams are really close together in terms of performance, so it looks like exciting racing for next year,” Wolff said in an interview. “I know we have not had the quickest package — car and engine — at times. What we will try to do is understand where we missed out and where we can improve.” He said that in a recent conversation, a friend told him it was good for Formula One that Ferrari and Red Bull were winning races. “I said to him, ‘What are you talking about?’,” Wolff recalled. “He said that it’s good for the sport, that we need variety, hard racing.” Wolff said that while it was nice to dominate, Formula One “needs more drivers and teams capable of winning,” but he said Mercedes “will do its utmost to stay on top.”

This weekend, history will be made at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. For the first time, an all-female team will compete in the LMP2 class, which is open exclusively to privately owned teams. It represents the culmination of the work of the Women in Motorsport Commission and Richard Mille, president of the Endurance Commission of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, the sport’s governing body. The Women in Motorsport Commission was created in 2009 by the F.I.A. to show that motorsport is accessible to women in all areas and to encourage greater participation. It is run by Michèle Mouton, its president, who led an all-female crew to victory at Le Mans, and 21st over all, in the two-liter prototype class in 1975.

Since 1923, of the 4,298 crews to start Le Mans, only 23 have been entirely female. None have raced at the LMP2 level. “We at the commission have been working for many years to get teams and manufacturers involved, to have ladies in a top team,” Mouton said in an interview. “This was like a dream, I would say.” Tatiana Calderón of Colombia, Sophia Flörsch of Germany and Beitske Visser of the Netherlands will drive an Oreca 07-Gibson for the Richard Mille Racing Team run by Signatech, a French auto racing company. Signatech won last year’s LMP2 category.