Classic motorsport moments: Hamilton’s first F1 title

Then 22-year-old Lewis Hamilton made his F1 debut in 2007, racing for McLaren alongside Fernando Alonso. He scored his first podium in his very first race, and just a few weeks later took his maiden win at the Canadian Grand Prix.

Baby Lewis led the World Championship for much of his inaugural season in F1, in fact. And were it not for an honest mistake and a rotten stroke of luck, he could well have won the world championship in his first-ever season.

The mistake came in the penultimate race of the season, the Chinese Grand Prix, for which Hamilton had qualified on pole. Going into the race he was 12 points ahead of Alonso and 17 ahead of Kimi Räikkönen, so third would have effectively won him the title regardless of where his two challengers finished.

It was all going brilliantly until lap 26, when Hamilton started to struggle on his badly worn wet tyres. McLaren elected to leave him out a bit longer, but when he lost the lead to Räikkönen on lap 29 the call was made to pit at the end of lap 30. China’s pit-entry involves a tight left-hander – Hamilton, on tyres that were almost down to canvas by this point, understeered wide on the greasy surface and ended up beached in the gravel trap.

Alonso and Räikkönen were now only four and seven points respectively behind Hamilton. The Brit qualified second for the last race of the season in Brazil, but fell to eighth before suffering a gearbox problem (the ‘rotten luck’) that would relegate him to the back of the field. Hamilton recovered to seventh place – a mighty effort – but it wasn’t enough. Räikkönen won the 2007 F1 title by a single point.

So when Hamilton arrived in Brazil for the 2008 season finale, leading the championship with Felipe Massa’s Ferrari just seven points adrift in second, he knew anything could happen. Massa, buoyed by a home crowd, stuck his car on pole while Hamilton had to make do with fourth. Assuming the Brazilian lead the race to its end, Hamilton would have to finish fifth or higher to win his first F1 world championship.

Heavy rain delayed the start by ten minutes, but when the race eventually got going Massa and Hamilton both got clean getaways and kept their positions. As the track began to dry, Massa pitted for slicks on lap ten, a lap before second-placed Trulli, third-placed Räikkönen and fourth-placed Hamilton.

Hamilton comes out of the pits in seventh – Vettel, Alonso and Fisichella having slipped through by swapping to dry tyres earlier. But he soon took Trulli for sixth and, a few laps later, moved past Fisichella’s Force India to take fifth. And that’s where he stayed for much of the race.

Vettel pitted from second with 20 laps to run, promoting Hamilton to fourth. But as the German closed to within a couple of seconds of Hamilton, rain began to fall once more. A flurry of pit stops ensued with just a handful of laps remaining. But Toyota driver Timo Glock bucked the trend and stayed out, leapfrogging Hamilton, betting on the track staying dry enough for him to make it to the end on slicks. Now Hamilton needed to keep Vettel, who’d been faster all race, behind him. Or he’d lose the championship.

With a couple of laps left, the inevitable happened. Vettel capitalised on Kubica un-lapping himself to sweep past Hamilton. Were Hamilton to finish sixth, he and first-place Massa would end the season with the same number of points, but the championship would go to the Brazilian because he’d won more races that season.

Hamilton had no hope of re-passing Vettel, so as Felipe Massa crossed the line to win the race a lap later, the Ferrari garage (and the crowd) erupted with applause, thinking their man was world champion. But they’d forgotten about Glock – his penultimate lap was ok, but he lost a whopping 18 seconds on the last lap. Hamilton snuck past on the last corner, crossed the line in fifth place and won the first of his seven F1 world championships to date.

Clearly scarred by the experience, Hamilton has won each of his last five championships with at least two races to spare. Y'know, just in case.