The mythical, mystical championship barrier in racing

Despite being the overwhelming favorite to win his eighth Formula 1 world championship this season, Lewis Hamilton lost out to Max Verstappen on a last-race, last-lap overtake.

With the shocking loss, Lewis Hamilton ran smack into the invisible wall in front of winning eight major format auto racing championships, a wall that has claimed each and every one of the sport’s all-time greats.

Sir Lewis and Mercedes have dominated Formula 1 since the turbo hybrid power unit was introduced in 2014, with six world championships for Hamilton and a record eight constructor championships in a row for Mercedes.

Had Mercedes been similarly dominant when they jumped back into Formula 1 in 2010, Michael Schumacher surely would have been the first driver to win eight championships, but his Mercedes car wasn’t up to title contention like his earlier Bennetons or Ferraris.

Schumacher emerged as a dominant champion after the 1994 on-track death of Ayrton Senna, winning his first title that year and defending it in 1995. From 2000 to 2004, he won 48 of 85 races for Ferrari and five straight championships.

After three disappointing seasons without much of a shot at title number eight, Schumacher was replaced by Hamilton, who should have at least one more shot if he doesn’t retire.

But Hamilton will be 38 when his contract expires at the end of 2023, so there’s no guarantee he’ll race beyond then, even if he does return next year.

He may not even go into 2022 as the favorite; Max Verstappen and Red Bull have earned that privilege, especially with the changes coming to the cars next year.

But the wall between title numbers seven and eight isn’t just for Formula 1 drivers. A.J. Foyt won seven IndyCar championships, although the last one came during the most chaotic of the CART/USAC wars of the late 1970s and into 2008.

Scott Dixon looked to be a candidate to join Foyt at seven this past season, but he couldn’t defend his 2020 championship against new teammate Alex Palou. Dixon is 41 and Palou is 24, so it’s entirely possible that Dixon has seen his last opportunity for a title pass him by in a very familiar livery.

NASCAR offers the most inexplicable and interesting failed quests for eight titles. Richard Petty absolutely dominated the late 1960s and early 1970s, but rule changes and the inability to find the right flavor of GM car brought him back to the field. He finished no higher than fourth place in the championship standings in his last 13 seasons.

Petty unwillingly handed the championship baton to Dale Earnhardt, who intimidated his way to three titles in the 1980s and four of the five between 1990 and 1994. And it was he who came closest to winning an eighth championship, finishing second to Jeff Gordon in 1995 and Bobby Labonte in 2000 before his tragic death in the 2001 Daytona 500.

The most puzzling case of failing to get past seven is that of Jimmie Johnson. In his first 12 seasons, he won six championships, including five in a row from 2006 to 2010, and never finished worse that sixth in the standings. But other than his seventh and final championship in 2016, his final seven seasons were pedestrian in comparison.

The circumstances that have conspired to hold Hamilton, Schumacher, Foyt, Petty, Earnhardt, and Johnson to the seemingly insurmountable peak of seven championships has been varied and strange, almost to the point where there must be some kind of divine or supernatural intervention.

But auto racing is a sport of physics and fortitude, and neither one of those have finite boundaries. So expect others to approach that magical number at some point; we’ll just have to see what the racing gods have to say about eclipsing it.