Lewis Hamilton had a chance to clinch his fifth career Formula 1 championship in the United States Grand Prix, but he failed to do it.
Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport’s Lewis Hamilton entered the 18th race of the 21-race 2018 Formula 1 season, the United States Grand Prix, with a chance to clinch his fifth career Formula 1 championship.
However, the 33-year-old Briton could not quite pull it off.
Hamilton entered the race, which he started from the pole position, with a 67-point lead in the driver standings (331 to 264) over Scuderia Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel in second place. To clinch the championship, Hamilton needed to outscore Vettel by at least eight points in this race.
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With a maximum of 25 points on the table for each driver in each race and three races remaining on the schedule following the United States Grand Prix, Vettel needed to remain within 74 points of Hamilton in order to prevent Hamilton from clinching the championship in this race.
Vettel needed to be within 74 points of Hamilton as opposed to 75 points as a result of the fact that he cannot win a tiebreaker with Hamilton. Hamilton entered the race with nine victories while Vettel entered it with five. As a result, Vettel’s highest possible win total for the 2018 season was nine, which would tie Hamilton’s..
However, even if Vettel were to win each of the final four races of the season to end the season with nine victories, he would still lose the tiebreaker to Hamilton because of the fact that Hamilton would have more second place finishes than he would.
Hamilton has earned three second place finishes so far this season while Vettel has earned only two. If Vettel would win each of the season’s final four races to make second place finish total the tiebreaker, he would be unable to add to his second place finish total.
Hamilton ended up finishing the 56-lap race around the 20-turn, 3.427-mile (5.513-kilometer) Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas in third place. As a result, he scored 15 points.
Vettel, meanwhile, finished the race in fourth and scored 12 points as a result of it. This means that with three races remaining on the 2018 schedule, Hamilton leads Vettel by 70 points in the driver standings and therefore has not secured his fifth career championship quite yet.
Will Lewis Hamilton clinch his fifth career Formula 1 championship in the next race on the schedule? That race is the Mexican Grand Prix, and it is set to be broadcast live on ABC from Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City, Mexico next Sunday, October 28 beginning at 3:10 p.m. ET.