Despite being a seven-time world champion, Lewis Hamilton actually should have been a ten-time champion because of three “lost” titles in his career.
Lewis Hamilton’s disappointment at missing out on a record-breaking eighth World Championship and the manner in which the title was decided will always be associated with the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
But by the time of that night at Yas Marina, what if he was supposed to be a ten-time champion already?
Yes, disregard Abu Dhabi. Hamilton has missed out on three World Championships that would have made Abu Dhabi unnecessary due to mechanical gremlins and a forgotten accident.
One may argue that 2012 should be added to the list below as McLaren had the fastest car. However, Hamilton’s opportunity to challenge Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso in his final year before switching to Mercedes for 2013 was lost due to recurring operational and reliability issues.
2007
Early in his Formula One career, Hamilton made a statement by dancing the McLaren around Alonso at Turn 1 in his debut Australian race. There’s nothing quite like letting the World Champion know your thoughts about the #1 decal on his vehicle.
From the start of the season, tensions between the two had been building since the infamous Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying, where Hamilton was essentially told to hold position behind Alonso—a multi-positional order, if you will.
As a three-way race for the championship was developing, good cop Bernie Ecclestone was able to persuade bad cop Max Mosley not to kick Hamilton or Alonso out of the Drivers’ division. This was the penultimate race of the year. McLaren had been fined $100 million for Spygate and had lost the Constructors’ championship.
Alonso had 95, Kimi Raikkonen had 90, and Hamilton had 107 points going to China. With only 20 points remaining on the board, Raikkonen had to close a 17-point deficit from the days when winning meant 10 points.
To win the race, Hamilton only needed to finish one point ahead of Alonso and six behind Raikkonen.
However, Hamilton was kept out on worn intermediates by McLaren, who were waging open warfare against their own driver Alonso, to the point where when Hamilton finally pitted, he skated into a gravel trap and Raikkonen won.
As a result, going into Brazil, the rankings were Hamilton 107, Alonso 103, and Raikkonen 100.
Wheel gremlins dropped Hamilton far down the field and forced him into a recovery drive, but tyre degradation was high. Hamilton was forced wide at Turn 4 on the first lap.
At the last pit stop, Raikkonen unintentionally jumped teammate Felipe Massa, and he only managed a lapped seventh, missing out on fifth place and the title if Raikkonen prevailed.
Hamilton later hinted that he now knows exactly what happened politically behind closed doors, but he is unable to discuss it since his dreams of becoming the first-ever World Champion fell apart. Raikkonen won by a single point.
2010
Hamilton kind of lost this championship, but it was due to his DNF in the Spanish Grand Prix with two laps remaining.
Hamilton, who was running second behind Mark Webber, lost 18 points after his tyre rim failed, sending him flying into the Turn 3 barrier and giving Vettel and Alonso three more each.
Hamilton finished on 240 points, 16 behind winner Sebastian Vettel, according to the tables below, which reflect the final standings following the four-way shootout in Abu Dhabi.
Hamilton wins the championship by five points if those 18 lost points are added and Vettel forfeits the three bonuses he received in Barcelona.
If things had gone his way in 2007, then winning in 2010 would have been his third F1 championship in four years.
2016
The majority of the conversation surrounding Hamilton’s 2016 title loss was centered around the engine failure he experienced while leading in Malaysia, one of several he encountered that year.
However, it wasn’t what cost him. He fumbled his starts from pole position several times.
He qualified first in Australia, Bahrain, Spain, and Italy but was unable to win any of them. He and teammate Nico Rosberg crashed out of the race in Spain, which is well-known.
Hamilton only managed third place in Bahrain, a 20-point swing to Rosberg, while he finished second to Rosberg in Melbourne and Monza, with swings of 14 points each.
He also lost a 30-point swing in the then-annual funk weekend in Azerbaijan, as Rosberg won and Hamilton could only finish in fifth due to engine problems.
Rosberg ultimately prevailed by a mere five points, and he immediately gave the greatest mic drop of all time by quitting and making it impossible for Hamilton to reclaim the title.
