Hamilton fell 16 points short of 10 world titles

Lewis Hamilton won his seventh world title in 2020, putting him on a par with Michael Schumacher. Hamilton almost managed to take the record number of titles in 2021, but in the last race, the Briton lost to Max Verstappen. It was not the first time Hamilton lost a title fight at the last minute.

With 16 more points, Hamilton could have had 10 titles

Apart from 2008 (Hamilton won by one point more than Felipe Massa), Hamilton always won his titles by a relatively wide margin. The title fights he did not win and in which he came second were narrow losses for the Briton. In total, the Briton was 16 points short of having as many as 10 world titles in his pocket.

In 2007, the then McLaren driver failed to win the title in his first season by all but one point. Kimi Raikkonen ran away with the championship that year. Incidentally, one point would not have been enough for Hamilton that year, as a draw would still have seen him lose as he had fewer wins than the Finn (four against six). So there Hamilton came up two points short. In 2016, Hamilton also finished second. This time, he lost to Nico Rosberg by just five points. This season, though, the extra five points would have been enough, as the Mercedes driver had one more win than his teammate (ten against nine).

2021 was the last year in which Hamilton just missed out. The Briton lost to Verstappen in a tumultuous final stage of the very last race of the season in Abu Dhabi. The difference between the Red Bull Racing driver and Hamilton was eight points. Since Hamilton 'only' won eight races that season and Verstappen won 10, he should have had an extra point. So in total, it was 16 points spread over the three seasons that kept Hamilton from winning ten F1 titles.

Schumacher comparison

Since the two drivers are now on par in terms of number of F1 titles, we could compare Schumacher and Hamilton by looking at the times they were close to grabbing a title. For Hamilton, this is obvious; the Mercedes driver could have had 10 titles with just 16 more points properly spread over those three seasons. These figures are higher for Schumacher.

In addition to his seven titles in F1, Schumacher also finished second twice and third three times. In 1998, the German missed out on 14 points to equal David Coulthard. In 2006, it was 13 to equal Fernando Alonso. So with 29 points in total, Schumacher had won nine titles. His third places in the championship were all by a considerable margin. In Schumacher's racing career during all his competitive years, the old points system still applied. This would only speak more to the 'advantage' of Hamilton, who came very close to another F1 title no less than three times in seasons where the points numbers between the various finishing places were greater.