Lewis Hamilton five-times Formula 1 world champion

Hamilton wins 2018 drivers’ title and becomes F1’s third five-times champion

2018 Mexican Grand Prix

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Lewis Hamilton has become the third driver in Formula 1 history to win five world championship titles.

The 33-year-old clinched the 2018 F1 drivers’ championship in today’s Mexican Grand Prix. He joins Juan Manuel Fangio and Michael Schumacher as a five-times champion.

Only Schumacher, who went on to win a total of seven championships, has more titles than Hamilton.

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List of Formula One drivers’ champions

RankDriverChampionships
1Michael Schumacher7
=2Juan Manuel Fangio5
=2Lewis Hamilton5
=4Alain Prost4
=4Sebastian Vettel4
=6Jack Brabham3
=6Jackie Stewart3
=6Niki Lauda3
=6Nelson Piquet3
=6Ayrton Senna3
=11Alberto Ascari2
=11Jim Clark2
=11Graham Hill2
=11Emerson Fittipaldi2
=11Mika Hakkinen2
=11Fernando Alonso2
=17Giuseppe Farina1
=17Mike Hawthorn1
=17Phil Hill1
=17John Surtees1
=17Denny Hulme1
=17Jochen Rindt1
=17James Hunt1
=17Mario Andretti1
=17Jody Scheckter1
=17Alan Jones1
=17Keke Rosberg1
=17Nigel Mansell1
=17Damon Hill1
=17Jacques Villeneuve1
=17Kimi Raikkonen1
=17Jenson Button1
=17Nico Rosberg1

This article will be updated.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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41 comments on “Hamilton wins 2018 drivers’ title and becomes F1’s third five-times champion”

  1. Well done. Congratulations to Lewis and Mercedes F1.

    1. Indeed! Well done Lewi5. What a mega year.

  2. Well done. Only two more to go to equal M. Schumacher.

    1. if today is a sign for the future that will be way more difficult.
      Ferrari had the car but not the driver and a Merc without HAM is lapped by Red Bull this race.

      1. Hamilton and MB can’t win them all. On this track and with the tyres available it was Red Bull’s day. Hamilton and MB will have strong winning opportunities on at least 15 F1 circuits in 2019/20.

      2. He was also lapped by them last year, but yet this year he won the title again. Not sure that argument carries any weight.

      3. Great comment, completely agree!

  3. Awesome work from Lewis – great to see Vettel breaking off from his interview to congratulate Lewis. A poke in the eye for all the Hamilton haters…. Just brilliant.

  4. Thoroughly well deserved. By far the best driver in F1 today.

    Now please, will you do a few seasons for the Tifosi? It would be better than the Sebastian or the Fernando era.

    1. I’m nowhere close to being a Ferrari fan (my brother is Tifosi through & through however… bleeds Ferrari red, & every few years Italia blue), but I would love to watch Lewis win a championship in a red car. It would be a fitting end to his career, I think. Maybe in a few years he & Vettel can trade seats :)

      1. He’d never win in a Ferrari, lol. Alonso and Vettel couldn’t do it.
        Let him stay at Merc for 5 or 6 more years, he’ll get 10 WDCs.

        1. He’d still have won in this, or last year’s Ferrari, IMO…

          1. True, and Alonso would’ve won this one too in a Ferrari, IMO

        2. Well, Hamilton would have one advantage in a Ferrari that Vettel and Alonso never had – he wouldn’t be competing against Lewis Hamilton!

      2. I can’t see VET still being around “in a few years”… Maybe not HAM either… And by then neither team is likely to be interested in either driver…
        Wishful thinking…? ;)

    2. Please no! I want to see him only at proper racing teams.

  5. Congratulations but Vettel still better than Hamilton.

    1. Fudge Kobayashi (@)
      1st November 2018, 11:53

      You need glasses.

  6. Grats and full respect to Mr Lewis.

  7. Well done Lewis! I wasn’t sure this was going to be his year, seemed like it was difficult to keep up with Vettel until mid-season, but he has been mighty down the stretch. Here’s hoping he continues to do battle for the championship with Verstappen, Vettel and Leclerc next season.

    1. That would be good… but I’m not convinced that Honda will be ready before 2020… And will Ferrari team-orders allow LeClerc to shine…? But I can see VET/LEC doing a HAM/ALO… leaving HAM and VER to go at it…
      Could still be good… ;)
      As the off seasons get shorter, why do they seem to get longer… lol.

  8. Congratulations to Lewis! He’s proved he’s the best of his generation! He’s been unbelievable this year, some of the qualifying laps this year will go down as some of the best ever in F1.

    2 to go till Schumacher’s record… and maybe only 2 years left in F1

  9. Congratulations to Lewis for the 5th title. And today’s race is a further prove that he didn’t necessarily have the best car. It was and still is mighty close between Mercedes and Ferrari yet Lewis made the champioship pretty one sided tells a lot about Lewis Hamilton.
    Well done Champ.

  10. Would love to see him finish his career at Ferrari in a few years. Would be a new challenge to try and win titles for three different marques.

    1. Agreed. One more title for Ferrari would be worth 3 more for Mercedes imho.

  11. Yay, Mercedeeeeeeeeees….

  12. Get in there, Lewis, X5!

  13. I’m a little sad today could have been more historic, if not for Mclaren’s failures in 2007 and his Mercedes reliability problems in 2016. He could already have equalled Schumacher.

    Still, an impressive season up against genuine competition from Ferrari. Congratulations Lewis! Here’s hoping there are a few more championships left in him.

    Also, as much as Vettel grates on me, his determination to congratulate Lewis after the race showed he’s got class. So well done to him too for that. Hopefully it doesn’t go unnoticed in this week’s world press covering the F1 outcome.

    1. Totally agree!

      I know there are no “ifs” in F1, but Lewis could easily be on his 7th world title by now. He lost by a single point in his rookie year, and though people blame him for his grass excursion in China, objective fans know it was Ron Dennis’s indecision and micromanagement that caused that. No rookie has ever performed the level Lewis Hamilton performed in 2007.

      More is, it too a cheating teammate (Monaco), a DNF, and something like 7 engine related issues that ensured he started from the back of the grid 3 times, and and mid grid 4 times to lose the championship by only 5 point in 2016. And he still beat the champion (Rosberg) on pole positions and wins.

      Again, people want to blame bad starts, but he lost far more point to the engine related issues than to the bad starts. It truly shows the level he has been general performing at since he entered the sport.

      1. Nell (@imabouttogoham)
        29th October 2018, 3:36

        It comes with the territory. For every misfortune he had in Mclaren, whether it was in 2007, 2010 or 2011, or even in 2016 when Rosberg seemed to be bulletproof, he had it paid back to him this year. But you make your own luck and Lewis cashed it in at opportune moments.

    2. @JC @kbdavies @imabouttogoham I still particularly feel sore about 2007 and 2016 (although I respect how formidable an opponent Rosberg was) and it’s easy to think “what if”, but part of me also has the feeling that the experience from those disappointments may have helped Lewis to be a better person and driver than he may have been if things had gone his way in 2007, 2012 and 2016. He may not have made the leap of faith to Mercedes if he didn’t have reliability issues at McLaren in 2012. The mettle he developed from his battle with Rosberg set him up well for his showdown with Vettel. So in the case of his career the hardships may have helped.

      Alternatively everyone knows how Lewis rides the crest of the wave when he’s on top so it could be looked on the other way.

      Lewis gets a lot of stick on here for saying that everything happens for a reason, but I can’t help but think that, maybe in this case, it is true.

      1. Great comment

  14. Lenny (@leonardodicappucino)
    28th October 2018, 23:04

    Not to rain on Hamilton’s parade, he fully deserves this title and has been amazing this year, but surely it can’t have just been me that got annoyed at the incessant reminders that Hamilton was in championship position. Please do give us an update when he comes into or goes out of championship position, but with him being more than a lap ahead of 7th place for most of the race, it really wasn’t necessary to remind us that Hamilton was going to win the championship about every 5 minutes.

    1. You can’t expect much more with the standard of today’s commentators …. oh for someone like Murray Walker.

      1. Agree with both Lenny and Foggy…

  15. Congrats to Lewis on his 5th! He makes it look easy doesn’t he? Whatever people might think of his style or personal life, there’s no denying he gives a huge amount to the sport and is undoubtedly one of the best there has ever been.

  16. Congratulations Lewis on a fantastic achievement ….. it made staying up all night to watch the race worth it.

  17. Congratulations to Lewis, he truly earned his 5th.

    Schumacher’s 7th looked untouchable even a few years ago, now it feels like a question of “2020?”.

    I can’t wait for 2019, to be honest, will Vettel and Ferrari come back reinvigorated, or have they peaked in this PU era?

    1. Nell (@imabouttogoham)
      29th October 2018, 3:38

      Who knows? I think a third team will really throw the spanner in the works, as we saw today.

  18. Interestingly, he was also the 3rd drive to be a 4 time world champion.

    Will he also be the 3rd driver to become a 7 time world champion? :P

    1. No, he was the 5th Driver to be a 4 x Champion, as Fangio, Prost, Schumacher and Vettel all had 4 before him.

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