Hamilton wins his fourth world championship title

2017 F1 season

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Lewis Hamilton has become world champion for the fourth time.

F1 drivers’ championship reigns – see full chart
The Mercedes driver could only manage to finish ninth in the Mexican Grand Prix following a first-lap collision with Sebastian Vettel which caused a puncture. However the same clash forced Vettel into the pits with front wing damage, from where he was only able to recover to fourth.

Hamilton’s championship success lifts him above his childhood hero Ayrton Senna’s achievement of three world championship titles. He is only the fifth driver in F1 history to win the championship four times, and the first British driver to do so.

Hamilton has won nine races so far this year and earlier in the season surpassed Michael Schumacher as the most successful driver of all time in terms of pole positions.

Hamilton celebrates his fourth drivers’ championship win

List of Formula One drivers’ champions

RankDriverChampionships
1Michael Schumacher7
2Juan Manuel Fangio5
=3Alain Prost4
=3Sebastian Vettel4
=3Lewis Hamilton4
=6Jack Brabham3
=6Jackie Stewart3
=6Niki Lauda3
=6Nelson Piquet3
=6Ayrton Senna3
=11Alberto Ascari2
=11Jim Clark2
=11Graham Hill2
=11Emerson Fittipaldi2
=11Mika Hakkinen2
=11Fernando Alonso2
=17Giuseppe Farina1
=17Mike Hawthorn1
=17Phil Hill1
=17John Surtees1
=17Denny Hulme1
=17Jochen Rindt1
=17James Hunt1
=17Mario Andretti1
=17Jody Scheckter1
=17Alan Jones1
=17Keke Rosberg1
=17Nigel Mansell1
=17Damon Hill1
=17Jacques Villeneuve1
=17Kimi Raikkonen1
=17Jenson Button1
=17Nico Rosberg1

2017 F1 season

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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62 comments on “Hamilton wins his fourth world championship title”

  1. Nice try Seb!

    Congratulations to Lewis, thoroughly deserving of the title against Vettel this year.

    1. This year was satisfying. Hamilton was the best driver this year. He started by beating his teammate. He also outdrove his rivals.

      Vettel drove well most of the time, but he made 2 very costly mistakes. He came out behind In Spa where he had a chance but was out-driven.

      Versappen drove well this year, especially recently, but made mistakes earlier in the year. His car was so bad he never had a chance. Let’s hope Renault fixes the power train for next season.

      The Mercedes was still the best car this year. It made it easier for Hamilton to drive so well. But he still drove almost flawlessly. A well deserved championship.

      1. @slotopen

        He came out behind In Spa where he had a chance but was out-driven.

        Unless Vettel is somehow to blame for the Ferrari engine not having as much power as Mercedes down the kemmel straight, he was not out-driven.

        1. Not this engine nonsense again. By that logic Vettel had the better chasis but still couldn’t win in Spa. Heck, he even had the faster tyre but still couldn’t win. All things being equal I would say “outdriven” is about right.

          1. By that logic Vettel had the better chasis but still couldn’t win in Spa. Heck, he even had the faster tyre but still couldn’t win.

            It really doesn’t matter how fast you are in the corners, an overtake happens almost always down the straight. Ferrari did not have enough down the straight to pass Mercedes, therefore Mercedes was by default the best car.

  2. So, is here the place to finally place my two cents on Lewis’ place in history? Reading British papers the last week, they put him in the all time greats. I can’t disagree, nor do I think I should. BUT.
    Do they place Vettel there? I never hear anything about that. Senna, Schumacher, maybe Prost, maybe Clark, maybe Fangio. But never Vettel. Yet they both have 4. Vettel had it far sooner. Vettel, frankly, should have had it this season.
    I don’t want to open this clam right now. They are both all-time greats. Maybe neither is Senna nor Schumacher. But both are easily top ten ever. Ever. The debate on how good they are on tiny increments makes no sense. Let’s except they’re both brilliant and we are blessed to see them AND Alonso, Verstappen, etc.

    1. The Mercedes was the car to beat this year. The only reason Vettel had a chance and was leading the championship for most of the season was Hamilton’s terrible consistency in the first half of the season. And even this race Hamilton was nowhere without problems to his car whereas Vettel still managed to finish within 17 seconds of his teammate.

      1. Oh and Vettel has been placed amongst the very best several times by different pundits. I can remember Murray Walker doing a list and placing Vettel above Alonso with Hamilton not even top 10. And the outrage here on this site because of it.

      2. Hamilton’s terrible consistency in the first half of the season.

        Eh I wouldn’t call it that bad

      3. Michael Brown (@)
        30th October 2017, 16:00

        Hamilton was off the pace in Russia and Monaco. Not that bad compared to Vettel’s mistakes this season.

      4. Ah, the car trope argument. But wait there’s more. Hamilton’s inconsistency at the start of the season. A season which started with the Mercedes (diva car) trying to understand the quirks in setting it up. With the exception of Monaco, I think this has been his most consistent year in f1. Faint praise, not a bit of it. But hey, you are entitled to your opinions, so are the rest of us, how think otherwise.

    2. Senna, Schumacher, Fangio, Clark and Prost make up the top 5 for me. Vettel, Hamilton and Alonso are close behind, possibly even 6-8 (I personally can’t put them apart, would probably say Alonso>Vettel>Hamilton though as that’s the order in which I like them :P), but they could well move ahead into the top 5. Although it’s incredibly difficult to compare them with the different generations etc.

    3. I’m sure the German press will put Vettel among the all time greats… by press, do you mean the for profit organisations that sell to a hugely nationalistic audience? Try a source that doesn’t profit from nationalism, that caters equally to an international audience (hint, you’re already here)

      1. Haha, sure, I didn’t mean anything by it. It just got me thinking. And my personal conclusion was, both of them are all time greats. Always virtually impossible to compare eras. And compare cars. But both Vettel and Hamilton are so special, easily top ten ever for me. That’s my point.
        This, frankly, is still a quite UK centred website, so we’re not exactly already there, but even so, it’s more balanced.

        1. I know, I just find it fascinating how much prominence is given to the press, when their weaknesses are often so glaring – not that I agree with the great orange one that it’s faked, but they do tend to put sales ahead of objectivity – but a site like this with such a light touch on the moderation – I love hearing people from around the world talk openly about why a driver I’ve not thought too much about is their favourite – usually followed by disappointment at others trying to tear them down, but still, it is the community that makes a site like this!

        2. @hahostolze At least it’s balanced enough for some readers to complain about @keithcollantine‘s pro-Vettelness so there’s that

    4. Vettel, frankly, should have had it this season.

      Yes he should. The reason he didn’t is down mostly to him, and then some to Ferrari for pushing too hard after his Singapore pile up (and the Baku incident). Today he again took himself out of any chance of remaining in the title hunt by over-reacting to Verstappen’s pass.

      1. First I doubt vettel lost anything today, the alternative would’ve been verstappen first, vettel 2nd, hamilton 3rd or swap vettel-hamilton, in all cases hamilton would’ve been champion seeing as a 5th place would’ve been enough even if vettel won.

        So vettel was 66 points behind, he now gained 10 on hamilton, 56 behind, 2 races to go, so we’ll have to see how it goes there, but let’s remove reliability problems, vettel probably wins malaysia, hamilton down to 3rd (I’m not considering other people’s reliability problems, or raikkonen might’ve got past hamilton that race, only hamilton’s and vettel’s), this would bring vettel at -40.

        Then japan, vettel had to retire, think he’d have been 2nd, so -22.

        Hamilton lost baku win cause of headrest problems, so 1st, vettel down to 5th, so -40 again, then hamilton lost another 3 points due to austria penalty problems, -43, I think that’s it, hamilton gained only little of his advantage through better reliability, rest is better driving overall and better car, I consider mercedes the top car this year, just look at bottas catching vettel in the driver’s standings.

  3. He deserves it.
    I would have loved if 3 of them would have been conquered, and it would have been great to see him win races like Texas more often rather than even more schumacher-esque races.

    1. @peartree

      Thought the same last summer, but he would’ve retired if that would’ve happened after today (The Texas-esque things). He has mentioned numerous times he thought of it. People sometimes forget how hard the pressure is in combination with the amount of travelling, keeping your family happy and the excessive exercising like hell. Remember: They wanted to pay Rosberg >50 million, and Nico just said ”I’m done with this (….), it’s all too much!” Just also from all those races he was 2s behind 60 laps as well, doing nothing that hard, really. If we do that to our wives and tell them ”It’s too hard, driving fast cars around the world… even with the halo”, they’d murder us, surely.

      Anyway, it will fuel his motivation to get nr. 5. because all the new kids watching nowadays forget he was just (or even bigger I guess as Alonso was hailed the new Schumi and global internet was just starting this new kind of mass post-race discussion just as now) the shock as Max was in 2008.
      He has had a teammate he defeated, so scratch that, so to silence up many of the people who still aren’t putting him at least close to Schumi and Senna, he would need to win the next WDC like that race on Interlagos again: Kind of a dilemma.
      But by the looks of how he told Verstappen in Malaysia ”I could’ve defended harder against you”, and by how hard he fought with Alonso, I think he is far from done yet. 5,6 & 7 are in sight.

      PSA: I’m off now, dead races ahead. See you next year!

      1. I agree, hamilton is similar to senna and close to schumacher imo.

        If there’s someone who can be better or equal to schumacher it’s clark I’d say, it’s a very similar career, you just need to project the amount of races and years and you reach very similar results as schumacher.

      2. @xiasitlo No fun for us to win them easy or better said perfectly. No one who call himself an f1 fan is missing the Interlagos race…. Abu Dhabi though.. I won’t miss either, just sayin’

        1. @esploratore With the journey he made, Clark is quite good call indeed. He comes from a golden period, so is Lewis could live that journey, it would shape F1 for the next century to come.

          @peartree Oh to clarify: I’m watching them, but just as a pure fan on vacation, not discussing anything on-line or working with the markets as they’re often dead after the WDC is decided.

  4. Still below Vettel. Quite fitting.

  5. Did Lewis get weighed on the scales after the race like normal? It all seemed a bit chaotic!

  6. Memo to other Formula 1 teams: four years of the hybrid era and you can’t close the gap to Mercedes? Come on! If Mercedes aren’t beaten in 2018 it will be another bad year.

  7. I think he also got another new record, first to get WDC while getting lapped by a teenager

    1. Moi, you sound so bitter and twisted:(

      1. It is a fact.

        1. It’s not.

    2. I know Andretti wasn’t a teenager, but didn’t Hunt secure the WDC after being lapped by first and second place? If so, how old was second place?

    3. Actually Max is 20 years old now :)

    4. I didn’t know 20 was spelt “twentyteen”!

      1. Hahahahaha. Spot on mate

    5. 20 year old teenager… LOL! the things some people manage to convince themselves of just to make themselves feel better.

      1. Sir, Ouch.

  8. Well done to Hamilton, he’s driven a flawless season. Also, am I the only one that’s confused about Grosjean getting a penalty for being crashed into?

  9. If that were the case then he would also be the first WDC to win the championship after being lapped by a driver with a time machine, Max hasn’t been a teenager since September 30th.

  10. While I wasn’t rooting for him (is that the right spelling?), he’s deserved it this year because of some his laps in qualifying and some of his performances in the races, and didn’t make a single mistake, compared to Seb (I’ll admit he did put up a good challenge in the first few races).

    2018 is going to be interesting if Red Bull can get in the mix and Ferrari can sustain there performance from this year, because I have a feeling that if Renault and McLaren improve next year then we could have a real classic title fight next year like 2010/12.

  11. Congratulations to Hamilton! Congratulations to all his fans!

    Massive achievement. Nothing to sneeze at! Will he make it 5 next year and elevate himself even further? Exciting times!

  12. Can one predict whether Lewis wins the WDC half way into the season? Apparently, yes! I had noticed a pattern that I hoped would be broken last year (2016), but it wasn’t. And the pattern has held true this year also.
    Hamilton’s chances of winning the WDCs to date can be predicted by what happens during the weekends in four of his favourite grand prix: Australia, China, Britain and Hungary.
    Lewis has won the WDC any year he wins the grand prix in China and in Britain;
    Lewis has won the WDC any year he gets pole in Australia and in China;
    Lewis has won 5 Hungarian GPs and 4 WDCs but any year in which he has won the Hungarian GP he has failed to win the WDC!
    I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this pattern?!

    1. In the same pattern but that everytime Kyvat gets the sack, VERS wins?

    2. Up to this year VET had won every championship he’s led at any point in the season (…that includes the parade lap of Abu Dhabi 2010, I guess!)

      That and yeah…KVY demotion=VES win?

  13. Lewis now cements his spot along the greatest ever… Somewhere around top 5. Before this season he was say top 10. Few more (4 or 5) seasons like this and a strong case can be made, that he is greatest ever.

    Stats now show him to be greater than Vettel in all facets of F1 racing. Only one of them can surpass the great MSC in stats… We’ll see next year.

  14. OmarRoncal - Go Seb!!! (@)
    30th October 2017, 0:22

    Now I think this season he has proved to be a little better than Vettel. I mean, before this season I ranked them as equal. But unless Vettel / Ferrari get their act together (and especially Seb who needs to improve his starts to avoid hitting others) I think LH is closer to a fifth than Vettel. Congratulations as it’s well deserved. And LH fans enjoy! I hope the next season becomes what this one promised to be until the summer break came. Forza Seb!!!

  15. Hamilton did what he had to do to win it. He had the best car on the grid and a teammate thrown into Hamilton’s team at the last minute.

    Were no excuses this year. Had the fastest and most reliable car on the grid.

    Congratulations to Mercedes. Wow. What a car. Not as dominant as 2014-16, but I don’t think we’ll ever see that level of dominance ever again. They were the most dominant team in the history of the sport.

    This year still had the best car, still had a some what dominant car (more along the lines of the 2011 Red Bull when McLaren managed to take 6 wins off them).

    Mercedes have 11 wins this year, Ferrari 4, Red Bull 3.

    I think we’d have seen different results if Hamilton, Vettel and Verstappen had equal machinery, but oh well that’s part of the fun.

    1. I’d just like to add that while Ferrari had 4 wins, they definitely didn’t have the best car when they won in Australia (Mercedes ruined their strategy), and definitely didn’t in Bahrain when Hamilton made a pit lane error.

      By my count Ferrari had the best car in Monaco, Hungary, Singapore and possibly Malaysia.

      1. The Ferrari was a quicker race car in Melbourne. Mercedes strategy wasn’t great, but Hamilton was thrashing his tyres driving at a pace that Vettel wouldn’t be able to make an on-track pass at while Vettel was sat calmly waiting for his chance. As soon as he did jump him Hamilton couldn’t get close to Vettel, the Ferrari was just faster in race trim.

    2. I don’t think we’ll ever see that level of dominance ever again. They were the most dominant team in the history of the sport.

      Until I see Bottas waiting an age before waiving HAM through for a win after the last corner in Austria…..I’ll wait :p

  16. I’m surprised how many are using the word ‘now’ to reference to Hamilton his place in the all time great group, as if he wasn’t before this day. Both, Hamilton and Vettel, belong in that group already by winning three championships. Vettel certainly belongs in it by winning four consecutive ones, Hamilton certainly belongs in it by winning four with two teams,… Alonso if you ask me does so too despite his lack of championships.

    Despite having the (sometimes small) car advantage this season Lewis had a very good season, his Monaco and Russia slump really don’t take anything away from that. I think if we were to rerun this season a 100 times we’d see different outcomes all the time, that only means this title is all the more worth it compared to ’14 and ’15 for example. Surely Vettel feels the same about for example ’10 vs. ’13.

    Looking forward to 2018 already.

    1. I use that “now” word, because before this season in my book he was somewhat flawed yet extremeley fast driver, who was prone to undo himself… Sure top 10, but not top 3-5 greatest ever.

      This season he was excellent. His demeanour changed and he is now on his way to becoming greatest ever by my standards.

  17. Since 2008 the even no. Years have seen titles decided at the last race and odd no. Years titles decided before the last race. This bodes well for next season

  18. Well done Lewis!

  19. Get in there, Lewis!

  20. Did Mercedes win, or did Ferrari just lose?

    1. Some say having the fastest car gives you 7/10 chance of wining – the remaining 3/10 is up to the driver(s) and the team. Ferrari had the fastest car this season but failed to optimize their chances. Mercedes had the better performing team and drivers (at least for this season) and so won with the second fastest car on the grid.

    2. @nickwyatt Is the earth moving with Uranus standing still, or Uranus moving with the earth standing still?

      Aren’t both correct?

  21. Congratulations to Lewis for a well deserved Championship Win. Somehow it feels to me that this one is the most deserved he had won. Happy for him and F1 as well. Although Mercedes is still dominant, this year wasn’t an easy one and Lewis showed a bit more maturity than his competitors when it mattered.

  22. well deserved for Lewis this year, he’s had to at times pull something special out of the bag to beat Ferrari and Vettel and he’s delivered. Many see Hamilton as mentally weak but it looked more Like Vettel Cracking under the pressure IMO when you look at Baku, Singapore etc. A great battle though and be great to see that again next season.

    The naysayers will comment that Hamilton is now racking up these records using dominant machinery (40 wins in the last 4 years) but while that is correct to a certain degree, Hamilton had 22 wins when he left Mclaren, when he rarely had what could be described as a dominant car. 22 Wins in a career puts you up near the top 10 of all time anyway, it was inevitable that if Lewis ever did have dominant machinery he’d rack up wins and poles. No different to Schumacher who still managed to add 16 wins between 96-99 without being the fastest car on the grid.

    Yes he has had his off days – 2011 was a terrible season by his standards and sometimes he paid the price during 09-13 for “going for it” as opposed to just collecting points (hence him being outscored over 3 seasons – interestingly I only ever hear that stat brought up for Button over Hamilton, wasn’t it the same with Heidfeld and Kubica? although that never gets brought up). But there is no doubt he is one of the all time great’s (in the top 5 for me) and a special driver who the sport will Miss when he is gone.

    This year is his best title for me, some great drives, supreme qualifying laps and very few mistakes.

    1. Many see Hamilton as mentally weak

      @aledinho To be fair as you’ve said there was some time when he actually was (was) and I don’t see how HAM lost anything in 2013 (apart from people saying he moved teams for the money)

  23. @aledinho I agree with you completely.
    Hamilton’s skills and performance as a driver were already obvious before joining Mercedes. In 2012, the productivity of his entries spoke for themselves: an incredible 77% of all his GP entries (career to date) had ended in points scoring positions – compared to 71% for Alonso and 70% for Vettel; nearly half (47%) of all his entries had ended on the podium compared to 43% for Vettel and 41% for Alonso. And this was at a time when Seb and Fernando were ruling the grid!
    I am now convinced that McLaren were already on the decline when Lewis joined them. It was a case of Lewis flattering their achievements and not the other way around. Though I do look forward to a rejuvenated Macca come 2018!

  24. Joining the sportsmanship displayed here: congratulations to Lewis Hamilton for his 4th world title!
    Congratulation to Vettel for the good fight he put this year. Hope we all have an exciting season next year.

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