The Formula 1 World Championship is on hiatus for its annual three-week summer break, and returns with the Belgian Grand Prix on August 26 at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.
Lewis Hamilton has won a season-best five races: Azerbaijan, Spanish, French, German and Hungarian Grand Prix. His win at the Hungaroring last weekend was his 67th career victory.
Heading into this season, Hamilton has won the most grand prix in each of the last four seasons and is on pace to increase that streak, which would match him with Michael Schumacher for most consecutive seasons with the most grand prix victories.
Hamilton is also the last driver to win the most grand prix in a season and not end the year with the F1 title. He won 10 races in 2016, but finished second to Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg, who earned the title with nine wins. That marks the most wins in a season by a driver that did not win the title.
It wasn’t the first time a driver who won the most grand prix in a season – or at least tied the mark for most wins – failed to win the title. Stirling Moss was the first driver to win the most F1 races in a season without topping the final standings; he won a season-high four races in 1958 but finished second to fellow British driver Mike Hawthorne.
Jim Clark won a season-high three races in 1964 and four races in 1967, but couldn’t add to his two title counts. John Surtees won the 1964 title and Denny Hulme won the 1967 championship.
It was another 10 years before a driver failed to win the title after winning the most races in a season. Mario Andretti won a season-high four races in 1977 but finished second in the title run to Niki Lauda. Andretti got his revenge a year later, when his season-high six victories took him to the championship. Alan Jones won four races in 1979 but finished third in the points; Jody Scheckter won the title.
No decade was more evident in which race victories didn’t guarantee the title than did the 1980s. In 1982, five drivers – Didier Pironi, John Watson, Alain Prost, Niki Lauda and Rene Armoux – all won twice, but Keke Rosberg’s lone win in the Swiss Grand Prix was enough to triumph and win the championship by five points.
In 1983 and 1984, Alain Prost scored four and seven victories respectively but finished second in each season, to Nelson Piquet and Niki Lauda. The seven wins marked the second most by a driver without a championship in that season. Prost won a season-high five races in 1985 en route to the first of four F1 crowns.
Nigel Mansell followed Prost’s 1983 and 1984 showings in 1986 and 1987. Mansell won a season-high five races in 1986 and six races in 1987 but finished second in both seasons, to Prost and Piquet, respectively.
Ayrton Senna claimed six wins in 1989, but Prost took his third championship by 16 points. However, Senna won the next two championships on the strength of a series-high six wins in 1990 and season-best seven wins in 1991.
It would be almost 20 years before the driver with the most wins in a season failed to win the title. Felipe Massa won a season-high six races in 2008 and led the points standings heading into the season finale and his home race, the Brazilian Grand Prix, but it was Lewis Hamilton’s fifth win of the season that took him to his first championship by a single point.
With more than half of the 2018 season completed, Hamilton holds the points lead.
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