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Lewis Hamilton's loss at the hands of Max Verstappen at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was a tough pill to swallow for the Briton. But it wasn't the first time the seven-time world champion has endured that before.
In fact, the feeling is something Hamilton knows all too well. The Briton has a plethora of individual records, with more than 100 wins, 100 poles and seven world championships. Despite that, he has experienced the bitter taste of defeat in a title battle in the final race of the season four times.
The first came in 2007, Lewis Hamilton's debut season. Driving for McLaren, the young rookie was a force to be reckoned with. He was partnered with then defending world champion Fernando Alonso and the pair's icy relationship was detrimental to both their world title aspirations. Despite a stellar season, Hamilton would go on to lose the title to Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen by a solitary point.
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The Briton was also in the mix to land the 2010 world title heading into the final race of the year at the Yas Marina Circuit. On that occasion, however, he was in P4, 22 points behind the leader, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso. Ultimately, a win for Sebastian Vettel and a P6 finish for the Spaniard saw the German become the youngest F1 world champion ever. Hamilton finished the year in P4, despite his P2 finish in the race.
A frigid team-mate relationship peppered with friction was the foundation of Lewis Hamilton's rivalry with Nico Rosberg at Mercedes in 2016. With cries of favoritism as well as reliability issues, the Briton found himself on the back foot going into the tail end of the season. Hamilton rallied to win all four final races that year but was unable to prevent Rosberg from clinching his one and only world title.
2021 was the fourth installment of him suffering defeat in the final round of an F1 championship. Max Verstappen stole a march on Lewis Hamilton on the last lap of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to win his maiden world title.
Lewis Hamilton's 2021 Brazilian Grand Prix win hailed as 'F1 Folklore' by Jolyon Palmer
Lewis Hamilton's win at the 2021 Sao Paolo Grand Prix at Interlagos has been hailed as 'F1 Folklore' by F1 analyst Jolyon Palmer.
Jolyon Palmer is a former F1 driver who raced with Renault. He is also a former F2 champion. Currently, Palmer analyzes races for F1.com.
In his year-end review, the British analyst could not help but doff his hat to compatriot Lewis Hamilton for his win in Brazil.
Calling Hamilton's drive the best individual performance of the season, he wrote:
“It looked like Verstappen’s title was wrapped up on Friday night at Interlagos, when Hamilton was put to the back of the field after his car failed DRS checks post-qualifying and had a further five-place grid drop looming for an engine change.”
Palmer went on to write:
“What happened next will go down in Formula 1 folklore. The recovery from 20th to fifth in just a 24-lap Sprint was majestic. Clearly, Hamilton had the pace to charge, but the clinical nature of this rampage was that of an old school Hamilton we haven’t seen for a while: he took absolutely no prisoners.”
Despite the performance and win, Lewis Hamilton could not clinch what would have been a record-breaking eighth world championship.
