With 6,417 of the 2021 season’s 6,423 kilometres covered, Lewis Hamilton looked set for a record-breaking eighth World Drivers’ Championship.
But then Michael Masi decided he fancied one more lap of racing, and we all know what happened next.
An unprecedented eighth title would have secured Hamilton’s position as Formula 1’s ‘GOAT’ – Greatest Of All Time for the uninitiated – in many people’s eyes, but perhaps the circumstances around his loss are an even more compelling argument.
The accolade of GOAT is thrown around far too often and far too casually nowadays – in every sport, not just Formula 1.
It has been the recent presence and unparallelled excellence of all-time greats such as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in football, Roger Federer and Serena Williams in tennis, Usain Bolt in athletics, Tiger Woods in golf, and Tom Brady in American football – to name but a few – that has sparked the never-ending conversations.
Whilst technology has progressed in football since the days of Pelé and in golf since the days of Jack Nicklaus, in no other sport is the change as marked as it is in Formula 1.
The cars of the present day are almost incomparable to those of the 50s: stick Juan Manuel Fangio in a Mercedes W12 and he would probably be unable to get the thing moving.
F1 GOAT even more complicated than in other sports, and maybe we are best separating it into modern Formula 1 and – for want of a better term – historical Formula 1.
The candidates for the ‘historical GOAT’ would likely be Fangio, Jim Clark and perhaps Alberto Ascari. (That is a debate I’ll save for another day.) As for the ‘modern GOAT’, most seem to accept it now boils down to Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton. With Alain Prost unfortunate not to make the cut.
So, how did Hamilton missing out on his eighth title increase his claim for the throne? Well, it was the manner in which he lost.
The three men are all, of course, incredibly fast. They are also famously relentless in their pursuit of perfection, leaving no stone unturned. All are very technically minded and each built a hugely successful team around them – McLaren, Ferrari, and Mercedes respectively.
Where they differ is in their view of fair play and how far they are willing to go to win.
There is undoubtedly a level of ruthlessness required to become a champion. But there is also a line, and Senna and Schumacher crossed that line on multiple occasions, most famously during the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix and the 1997 European Grand Prix.
Whilst Senna’s infamous crash with Prost can be understood to some extent when you hear the full story of the politics with then-FIA President Jean-Marie Balestre, he still intentionally crashed into another driver to win the title, in an era of much-reduced safety.
Senna’s intensity and unflappable self-belief often resulted in uncompromising driving to the very edge of acceptability and, on more than one occasion, beyond it. It was part of what made him so great, but he sometimes went too far and that has to be seen as a negative.
Schumacher has an unfortunately long string of misdemeanours. His attempts – one successful and one unsuccessful – to take out a Williams in the title decider were two of the biggest blots on his copybook. He was disqualified from the entire 1997 season for his actions but escaped unpunished with his championship intact in 1994.
There were plenty more to come. Another notable transgression came when he parked his car at Rascasse during qualifying for the 2006 Monaco Grand Prix in an attempt to prevent Fernando Alonso claiming pole position, which led to a disqualification from the session.
And even upon his return to the sport in 2010, he very nearly put his former teammate Rubens Barrichello into the wall at high speed in Hungary, the Brazilian describing it as, “the worst piece of defensive driving I have ever seen”.
These varying forms of misconduct are something we have rarely, if ever, seen from Hamilton.
Of course, there has been the odd drama. Off the track, there was ‘lie-gate‘ – where he was instructed to lie to the stewards by his Sporting Director at McLaren – and his tweeting of sensitive telemetry. But these were reasonably minor indiscretions and, on track, Hamilton generally falls under the category of firm but fair.
Even during his prickly relationship with former teammate Nico Rosberg, as the German set about all-out psychological warfare, he would push his wheel-to-wheel racing to the limit but never beyond.
And that was on full display again this season as he went toe to toe with Max Verstappen.
The pair’s clash at Silverstone was highly contentious and divisive, but – putting to one side the odd outrageous statement during the aftermath from Christian Horner or Helmut Marko claiming Hamilton tried to murder the Dutchman – with the benefit of hindsight, was a racing incident in which the seven-time world champion was arguably more culpable and certainly fortunate to escape without considerable damage.
Throughout the rest of the season, Hamilton repeatedly avoided contact with his title rival and showed what perhaps sets him apart from Senna and Schumacher – he has that steel and a relentless will to win, but he is also truly committed to winning the right way and – as he often points out was instilled in him from a young age by his father – doing his talking on the track.
Yes, he may complain over the radio, but that is something every single driver on the grid does. Hamilton’s radio is just broadcast far more than that of anyone else.
And then, even when he was robbed of the world championship by one of the most controversial decisions in Formula 1 history, he displayed the utmost sportsmanship and the epitome of class.
No mention of the controversy in his post-race interview – just a handshake with Verstappen, a congratulatory message for the new champion, and a thankyou to his team and the fans.
The recovery drive from the back of the grid in São Paulo was a performance for the ages – perhaps even at the very top of a stellar list compiled over the last 15 years – and one that would have been a worthy defining moment in a record-breaking achievement.
Would the two other great champions have been able to match that as a performance? You certainly wouldn’t put it past them.
But would they have been able to lose with as much style as Hamilton? That is very much up for debate.
