Record Hamilton title bid handed extraordinary blow

For many, Lewis Hamilton's dream of becoming an eight-time Formula 1 world champion died at the infamous 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

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.

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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.

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.

But perhaps the biggest missed opportunity of them all for the reason he is not on eight titles came at the very start of his career.

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Where did Hamilton lose the 2007 world title?

It's now 17 years since the 2007 Chinese Grand Prix which proved the start of a catastrophic end of season decline for Hamilton as he went on to miss setting the record of becoming the first and only driver to win the drivers' title in his first year in the sport.

Incredibly, the champagne was on ice. That afternoon in Shanghai, the McLaren rookie was well set to win the world championship with a race to spare.

In an era of 10 points for a win and none for a fastest lap, he arrived at the event with 107 points, and only McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso (far from a mate at this point), and Kimi Raikkonen could catch him on 95 and 90 points respectively.

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Hamilton just needed a win to be absolutely certain of the title, and that's what he looked like doing at the start of the race on a drying track as he led Raikkonen who he could afford to even let win and still claim the crown.

Hamilton's tyres were running out of tread though, and a mistake to run wide due to this allowed Raikkonen to pass to take the lead. This shouldn't have been a major issue for him given the championship scenario still ran in his favour, but the incident did underline that the McLaren starlet desperately needed a new set of tyres.

The 22-year-old dashed into the pits, but his McLaren never came out again. In fact, his MP4-25 didn't even get to see a new set of four brand spanking new Bridgestones... it didn't even get a glimpse of the waiting McLaren mechanics.

Instead, it ended up beached in a gravel trap following a left-hand turn just yards from the McLaren garage, resulting in Hamilton embarrassingly climbing out of the cockpit with his head in his hands following the first, and awfully timed, retirement of his F1 career.

Result? Raikkonen won from Alonso and the Finn triumphed again in Brazil in the finale to pip the warring McLaren enemies to the title by just one point.

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Whose fault was Hamilton's China '07 retirement?

The fall-out from China? No doubt Hamilton carried the can for the calamitous slide off the track, and he didn't hide away from it, saying after the race: “Prior to entering the pit lane for my last stop I was constantly talking to the team. Although my tyres were in poor condition we took a joint decision to get through the last rain shower before changing to dry tyres. I was trying to be very careful…”

But under the pressure, the rookie should never have been put in the ludicrous situation in the first place. It had been quite evident for a while that his tyres were pretty much running on just the canvas, and McLaren did him zero favours by leaving him out as long as they did purely only to keep him on the original pit strategy. McLaren team boss Ron Dennis, though, took this opportunity to blame the combination of water and tarmac.

“It's too extreme to say anyone made a mistake in this,” he said in defence of McLaren. "I don't think we did anything dramatically wrong and neither did Lewis. It’s easy to say we could have stopped earlier, but would it have made a difference? The circuit was considerably drier than the pit lane entrance. That's what made the difference."

Whoever's fault it was, it remains at the very least a vital bookmark to the history of Hamilton's current situation of being stuck on 'just' seven world titles. But was it the biggest? Have your say below.

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