After narrowly missing out on the championship in his very first season — losing to Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen by a single point — Hamilton continued his meteoric rise in 2008: winning five races and clinching the title with a fifth-place finish in Sao Paulo.
His ascent paused there, as McLaren fell behind from 2009. But a bold move to the unproven Mercedes team in 2013 reignited Hamilton’s successful streak.
The 2014 season brought a new set of rules, to which Mercedes designed a dominant power unit and chassis that remained the class of the field until 2020. Hamilton took full advantage.
His blinding pace and ever-improving racecraft meant that Hamilton out-thought and out-fought his friend turned team-mate and rival Nico Rosberg to world titles in 2014 and 2015. Even so, the best version of Hamilton was yet to come.
After losing out to Rosberg in 2016, Hamilton faced a resurgent Ferrari in 2017, where Sebastian Vettel was a serious title threat.
Hamilton left no stone unturned in his quest to win: managing tyres and his race strategy to perfection. Combined with his searing pace — most evident in qualifying, he added four more titles in consecutive seasons.
“I think he is the greatest of our era for sure,” Vettel later told media when asked if Hamilton was the greatest driver in F1 history. “I think it’s always difficult to compare, how can you possibly compare [Juan Manuel] Fangio, Stirling Moss to our generation? You can’t.
“But it doesn’t matter. There’s no doubt Lewis is the greatest in terms of what he has achieved. He’s equalled the championships [of Michael Schumacher], he has more races won, he has a lot more pole positions so I think he’s done everything you can ask for.”
Sebastian Vettel
2010, 2011, 2012, 2013
Sebastian Vettel was Red Bull’s first talisman, and reigned supreme for four consecutive seasons between 2010 and 2013.
Having impressed with Red Bull’s junior team Toro Rosso, earning its first victory at the 2008 Italian Grand Prix, he was promoted to the senior outfit in 2009 and claimed the same record, as he delivered Red Bull’s first grand prix win in China that year, finishing the season just 11 points short of world champion Jenson Button.
And then the Vettel era began: one that showed how much a gifted driver and an Adrian Newey-designed machine could achieve when in perfect harmony.
The RB6 with its blown double diffuser was the class of the field and its strong front end, coupled with a stable rear that Vettel could rotate with confidence on corner entry was perfectly suited to the protege.
Vettel became F1’s youngest-ever world champion at 23 — beating Fernando Alonso to the title by four points. The following year he replicated the same result, this time much more dominantly, as he claimed eleven race victories, secured 15 pole positions and finished no lower than fourth when he saw the chequered flag.
In 2012, Vettel showed the breadth of his repertoire, as he adapted his driving style to regulation and rule changes. Now, to achieve the stability created by the exhaust-blowing effect, he had to counter-intuitively accelerate mid-corner to cancel out oversteer.
The results speak for themselves, as in 2012, a late-season run of form — which included four successive race wins in Singapore, Japan, South Korea and India — saw him claim a third consecutive world title in Brazil, where he recovered to sixth after spinning at the start.