Lewis Hamilton matches F1 rival on titles despite race disaster - On This Day

Lewis Hamilton clinched his fourth Formula 1 drivers' championship at the 2017 Mexican Grand Prix despite finishing a lowly ninth, a result forced upon him by chaos on the opening lap at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Hamilton arrived in Mexico City holding a 66-point advantage over Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, 331 to 265, needing only a top-five finish to seal the title regardless of what Vettel did. 

Vettel, starting from pole, needed a win or second place combined with Hamilton finishing outside the top five to keep his hopes alive.

Those hopes effectively ended within seconds of the lights going out. Max Verstappen challenged Vettel around the outside through Turns 1 and 2, making light contact that unsettled the Ferrari's momentum and left it out of position heading into Turn 3. 

Hamilton swept around the outside there, and Vettel's front wing clipped the right rear of the Mercedes.

The contact proved costly for Hamilton. His car suffered an immediate right-rear puncture, while roughly half of the left side of his rear diffuser was torn away. 

The damage left him short of rear downforce for the remainder of the afternoon, unable to find stability in traffic, and he was eventually lapped by race winner Verstappen. 

The FIA stewards investigated the Turn 3 clash but ruled that no single driver was wholly to blame, and no penalty followed.

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What should have been a straightforward title run-in instead became a damage-limitation exercise. Hamilton crossed the line in ninth, a lap down, scraping together just two points. But it was enough. 

Vettel's own race unravelled too, the German recovering to only fourth, and the gap between the two was already unassailable before the chequered flag fell.

The championship made Hamilton the most successful British driver in F1 history at the time, moving him past Sir Jackie Stewart's tally of three titles. 

Speaking afterwards, Hamilton could barely believe what he had achieved. 

"Honestly, it doesn't feel real, man,” he said. “Obviously that's not the kind of race that I want, when you're 40 seconds behind or something. 

“But you know, I never gave up and that's really what's important, what's in my heart.

It also lifted him into a select group of multiple champions, level on four titles with Vettel and Alain Prost, a tally the Briton would go on to surpass in the years that followed.