The story has been well told by now, but in a nutshell it was basically the night Hamilton could only sit and watch at 200mph, as a winning lottery ticket was snatched out of his hand and burned in front of his face, with Max Verstappen benefitting from a controversial safety car to pit for fresh tyres and pass the helpless British star on the final lap to snatch the win and his first championship.
Ever since, Hamilton has been stuck on seven titles, and has won only two races in that period at this year’s British and Belgian grands prix, although he will have a fresh stab at title No 8 again when he joins Ferrari in 2025.
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But it could be argued that the fault for Hamilton not clearing Michael Schumacher’s bar of seven drivers’ titles already doesn’t rest with the fabled Abu Dhabi finale at all.
When did Hamilton last win the F1 championship?
In another dimension, Hamilton’s seventh and most recent championship success in 2020 with one of his greatest race wins at the Turkish Grand Prix could have, or even should have, been his eighth, ninth or even 10th world title.
For instance, if his engine didn’t explode at the Malaysian Grand Prix in 2016, then his team-mate Nico Rosberg wouldn’t have joined the list of championship winners that year – and Hamilton would have been laughing at Yas Marina with a third straight world championship in their fiery Mercedes duels.
Or maybe if he didn’t tangle with Felipe Massa at the start of the 2010 Italian GP, he could have claimed the second place that would have been enough to keep him top of the standings and deliver his second title come the season’s end.
