Lando Norris hoping to emulate unique Lewis Hamilton F1 title achievement

Upon claiming the 2025 F1 title in the Abu Dhabi showdown, Lando Norris became the 11th British driver to win the crown. 

He follows in the wheel-tracks of Mike Hawthorn, Graham Hill, Jim Clark, John Surtees, Jackie Stewart, James Hunt, Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill, Lewis Hamilton, and Jenson Button with Britain's 21st drivers' title. 

But remarkably, despite those 20 titles between Hawthorn in 1958 and Hamilton in 2020, it was only Hamilton who managed to successfully defend his crown. 

Whilst Graham Hill, Clark, and Stewart won multiple titles apiece, none of the trio were able to defend their titles, with Clark's 1963 and 1965 successes sandwiched by Surtees', whilst Stewart's three titles came in five years between 1969 and 1973, but was beaten (posthumously) by Jochen Rindt in 1970 and by Emerson Fittipaldi in 1972, a year he battled illness and missed the Belgian GP due to a stomach ulcer.

It would not be until 2015 that a British driver retained his title with Hamilton claiming his third in the United States after his 2014 triumph. 

He would go on to retain four titles successively between 2017 and 2020, and is tied with Juan Manuel Fangio and Max Verstappen on four titles on the bounce. Norris denied Verstappen the chance to equal Michael Schumacher's five straight crowns with his Abu Dhabi success.

Below in the table, are all the drivers to have successfully retained the drivers' championship, with an overall combined total of 41 of the 76 drivers' titles to be handed out.