Lewis Hamilton handed final nail-in-the-coffin verdict

Lewis Hamilton's retirement in the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday has been declared the moment his 2026 F1 championship dream died.

Hamilton retired on lap seven in Madrid due to an intermittent brake failure. It ended the seven-time F1 champion's run of scoring points in every grand prix this season.

"The pedal was long," said Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur. "We tried to fix it from the pit wall, and then it happened again a couple of corners later."

The retirement means Hamilton is now third in the drivers' championship, 101 points behind runaway leader Kimi Antonelli, the man who replaced him at Mercedes after he opted to head to Ferrari.

Remarkably, after Hamilton finished third after the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in early July, he was 32 points adrift of the 20-year-old. Over the following five races, that gap has increased by a staggering 69 points.

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Hamilton - 'There's no stopping Antonelli'

In a RacingNews365 poll, we asked whether Hamilton was now out of the title fight following his first retirement in 17 races, with 42.76 per cent voting that it was the definitive nail in the coffin for his championship chances.

In contrast, 38.21 per cent indicated that Hamilton's chances had evaporated anyway, before the race at the Madring.

Hamilton still has his believers, however, despite the yawning chasm in the standings to Antonelli, as 19 per cent of voters said he can still become champion for a record eighth time this year.

In essence, the mathematics indicate as such, whether there are eight or nine grands prix remaining, depending on whether a sole race in Europe concludes the season to replace the likely-to-be-axed Qatar and Abu Dhabi races due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

From Hamilton's perspective, he feels there is little left to fight for. On Antonelli, he said: "There's no stopping him and Mercedes this year. I think they've done a phenomenal job and they deserve it."