Driver championship chokes: Five times the F1 points leader threw away a likely championship

The most likely driver doesn’t always win the F1 title. Here are five examples of drivers choking and losing the championship from comfortable positions in the closing races.

With three races remaining in the F1 2025 season, all the momentum is with Lando Norris in the championship. But here are five occasions the championship lead, whether it be the driver or their team, was choked in similar circumstances.

Five times the F1 championship leader choked while leading

1986: Nigel Mansell

Points system: Nine points for a victory

With a 10-point lead in the Drivers’ Championship with two rounds to go, life appeared rosy for Williams’ Nigel Mansell after teammate Nelson Piquet had finished third, the duo split by McLaren’s Alain Prost in Portual – round 14 of 16.

In 1986, the points system was such that a driver’s best 11 races decided their championship points total, meaning a few variables as the championship entered the final two races.

A win in Mexico, the penultimate race, would secure Mansell the title. But, lining up third on the grid, and battling an upset tummy, Mansell wasn’t able to get his car into first gear and was swamped by the pack on the run to Turn 1.

Falling to 18th-place, Mansell eventually recovered to fifth, but due to the best 11 results rule, these two points did not count towards his final tally.

Prost’s second-place meant he was just six points behind Mansell heading to Australia for the finale.

Mansell duly took pole position in Adelaide, with Prost in fourth, but lost the lead to Ayrton Senna at the start. By the end of the lap, he also fell behind Piquet and Keke Rosberg.

Tyres ended up playing a huge part in the race as Prost suffered a puncture, but retained fourth after pitting. Piquet, who had spun on Lap 23, overtook Mansell to take second, with no love lost between the two Williams drivers following a tense season as teammates.

With Rosberg leading up front, Piquet, Mansell, and Prost occupied second through to fourth; Prost’s position was, unknowingly, even better, as Rosberg later revealed he was willing to fall on his sword to ensure the French driver maximised his points haul.

Mansell only needed third place to win the title, and this looked assured when Rosberg suffered a tyre failure and retired from the lead, despite Prost overtaking Mansell on track to demote the British driver further.

Circulating in third, the bare minimum he needed after losing out in battle to Prost, Mansell’s tyre exploded on the Brabham Straight. Coasting to a stop with severely damaged suspension, his championship was done.

While misfortune ultimately determined the outcome, Mansell’s difficult final two races had seen his comfortable championship lead squandered and, at the moment of being passed by Prost in Adelaide, had fallen out of the position he needed for the title.

Prost went on to win the race, claiming the victory and the title, while Mansell would have to wait six years for his title victory.

2014: Nico Rosberg

Points system: 25 points for a victory

The 2014 season marked the start of a new era in F1, as the sport ditched its naturally aspirated V8s to state-of-the-art V6 hybrid turbos.

Mercedes had worked hard on the new formula and showed up with an utterly dominant car and power unit package at the start of that season; the full extent of just how much performance was being hidden by Mercedes in the early days of the hybrids has been revealed by insiders over the years since.

With no one else really in contention for the title, the battle was between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg in an intra-team fight. Hamilton was pursuing his second-ever title after moving from McLaren a year prior, while Rosberg, a four-year veteran of the team, was chasing his first.

A tense ‘Duel in the Desert’ in Bahrain set the scene as both fought hard, but cleanly, as Hamilton emerged on top, but it was Rosberg who began opening up a points lead by the time of his home race in Germany.

Winning at Hockenheim, with Hamilton in third, he opened up a 14-point lead, with this lead growing to 29 points after Belgium

The race at Spa saw Rosberg take pole position, but while duelling with Hamilton, he had made contact with the British driver. The damage forced Hamilton out, while Rosberg was able to finish second after pitting for repairs.

In isolation, it was a minor incident, but in the context of the battle between the pair, it was one of the major flashpoints of the Hamilton vs. Rosberg rivalry.

Team boss Toto Wolff was furious. Hamilton claimed afterwards that Rosberg had admitted to making intentional contact “to prove a point”, which was denied by Rosberg, and the German driver was, allegedly, given an undisclosed financial punishment for the remainder of the season.

While team orders didn’t enter the equation, Rosberg only won one more race over the remaining seven rounds as Hamilton went on a victory rampage. Just five races later, all won by Hamilton, Rosberg’s 29-point lead had turned into a 25-point deficit, which only improved to 17 points ahead of the final race in Abu Dhabi.

With that race experimenting with an unpopular ‘double-points’ format, Rosberg still had a theoretical chance of winning the title. Taking pole position, any chance he had appeared lost as Hamilton got ahead by Turn 1, and vanished entirely by the middle of the race as he suffered an engine issue that meant he finished in 14th.

While Rosberg would eventually get his reward, two years later, his 2014 drop-off had been monumental, and suggests that either the events of Spa 2014 had weighed heavily on his mind, or an anger-motivated Hamilton had simply proven unstoppable.

1981: Carlos Reutemann

Points system: Nine points for a victory

With six races to go in the 1981 season, Argentine driver Carlos Reutemann led the championship by 17 points over Nelson Piquet.

Victories in Brazil and Belgium had set him up nicely early on, with his win in Brazil coming in controversial circumstances.

Despite only being the second race of the championship, Williams had instructed Reutemann to give way to teammate, reigning World Champion Alan Jones, to take the victory. Reutemann disobeyed and claimed the win, and a furious Jones didn’t bother attending the podium as a result.

This set the tone for the season, but it was clear that Reutemann had stepped up to the challenge of competing for the title as Jones never quite got fully involved.

It was Piquet and Brabham who emerged as the nearest rival to Reutemann’s lead, with the pair separated by three points after Monza, the third-last race of the season, where Reutemann claimed third place.

The gap was reduced to just a point between them after the penultimate race in Canada, as Reutemann faded from the front row.

Having stormed into the lead at Turn 1, he finished a lowly 10th in Montreal, but he settled the ship with pole position for the final race, the Caesar’s Palace Grand Prix, ahead of Jones.

The Australian was in no mood to help Reutemann out in his quest to win the title, despite Piquet starting behind him in fourth.

Jones promptly took the lead, while a hesitant Reutemann fell to fifth, although still ahead of Piquet in eighth.

With both Piquet and Reutemann lapping outside the points on Lap 17, Piquet overtook Reutemann and, eventually, finished fifth, with Reutemann a mystifying eighth.

It had been an incredibly lacklustre title showdown, but the overall win went to Piquet, by a single point.

With Jones winning in Las Vegas, the Australian proved the Williams had plenty of pace, but, for whatever reason, Reutemann had fluffed his lines at the important end of the championship.

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2010: Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber

Points system: 25 points for a victory

In this dramatic multi-protagonist season, two of the leading drivers choked their way out of the title in the final races.

It was the first season in which Red Bull had become championship contenders properly, and Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel were taking on the might of the new Ferrari threat in Fernando Alonso.

Vettel, as Red Bull’s wunderkind, had put in a strong season, but Webber had been the more consistent of the two, with multiple victories through the European summer season.

The German driver won at Suzuka, Round 16 of 19, to match Alonso’s 206-point total, although both were 14 points behind Webber as the championship moved onto Korea.

Webber’s 14-point lead was decent, but not uncatchable with three races to go, and Vettel set about closing the gap by taking pole position at Yeongnam as the two Red Bulls locked out the front row.

In soaking wet conditions, Vettel controlled proceedings at the start to stamp his authority on the race, while Webber made a critical driver error on Lap 19. Touching the outside kerbing, the Australian lost control of his car and slid backwards onto the racing line, collecting Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg in a collision that knocked both out on the spot.

“I thought I’d managed to catch it, but I lost the car and made contact with the wall,” Webber held his hands up afterwards.

“Then Nico hit me, which wrecked his race as well. It was my mistake, and it wasn’t my day.”

While Vettel kept his powder dry to control the race, it wasn’t a good day for Red Bull as he retired in the late stages with a Renault engine failure; the engine had been within sight of the last few miles of its planned life cycle when it detonated itself.

The two non-scores for Red Bull, combined with victory for Alonso, meant the Spaniard had an 11-point lead over Webber with two races remaining, and 25 points over Vettel.

The trio filled the podium at the penultimate round, in Brazil, with Vettel taking the win ahead of Webber and Alonso; Red Bull had opted against throwing its weight entirely behind Webber as both chased their maiden titles.

At the season finale in Abu Dhabi, Vettel proved untouchable from pole position to take the win and maximise the points possible to him across the final two races.

Alonso qualified third, with Webber in fifth and, when the Australian pitted to shed the soft tyres, Ferrari followed suit with Alonso to cover him off. It proved to be the wrong strategy call.

While Alonso remained ahead of Webber, both got stuck behind Renault’s Vitaly Petrov, who resisted Alonso’s attentions lap after lap. In a pre-DRS age, the Ferrari driver was stuck, with the trio crossing the line covered by less than a second.

Vettel had come from seemingly nowhere to clinch the title by four points over Alonso, who couldn’t help but demonstrate his anger and disappointment by gesticulating at Petrov on the slowdown lap.

With 25 points for a win, Vettel had overcome this deficit across two race weekends, 15 points at the final race alone, where both of his title rivals, Webber and Alonso, became preoccupied with each other.

2007: Lewis Hamilton

Points system: 10 points for a victory

After Round 15 of the F1 2007 championship, rookie driver Lewis Hamilton looked set to clinch a sensational maiden title at his first attempt.

It had been an unbelievable performance from the fresh-faced McLaren driver, who had stepped up from GP2 alongside the experienced two-time F1 World Champion Fernando Alonso, while former McLaren ace Kimi Raikkonen had replaced Michael Schumacher at Ferrari.

All three had scored multiple victories, but it was McLaren which perhaps seemed to have a little more consistency in performance as the season ebbed away.

A dramatic Japanese Grand Prix had resulted in Hamilton taking victory to seemingly put the championship out of reach of Alonso and Raikkonen; the Spaniard had crashed out dramatically midway through, while Raikkonen had spent the afternoon trying to recover from a disastrous Ferrari error that saw them start on the wrong wet-weather tyres.

Hamilton’s win put him 12 points clear of Alonso with two races remaining, and 17 points clear of Raikkonen, with a maximum of 20 points left on the table.

Surely, given his average score of seven points per round, Hamilton could do what Jacques Villeneuve couldn’t in 1996, and win the title at his first very first attempt.

Things looked even better for Hamilton as he took pole position for the penultimate round, the Chinese Grand Prix, ahead of Raikkonen on the front row.

But questionable decision-making from McLaren, as well as a mistake from Hamilton, resulted in him leaving Shanghai with nothing.

In drying conditions on aging intermediates tyres, Hamilton had attempted to hold off Raikkonen in a spirited battle, before he ran wide into Turn 8 to allow the Ferrari driver through into the lead.

Moments later, Hamilton dived into the pitlane to take on fresh tyres, only to enter with too much speed. With the canvas on his tyres showing through, such had been McLaren’s reluctance to bring him in until absolutely necessary, Hamilton ran into the gravel trap and lost the momentum he needed to get back on the tarmac.

Beached helplessly, metres from the pit entrance, Hamilton was eliminated from the race as Raikkonen romped to victory.

Despite the disaster, Hamilton still looked reasonably comfortable with a four-point lead over Hamilton, and a further three points ahead of Raikkonen. The Finn’s only chance of claiming the title against Hamilton would be victory in Brazil, with Hamilton scoring two points or fewer.

At Interlagos, Felipe Massa controlled proceedings from pole position at the start as Hamilton was wrong-footed by Raikkonen on the outside of Turn 1.

Hamilton’s hesitant start saw Alonso also find a way past his teammate, while the British driver desperately tried to save his day by re-passing into Turn 4. Locking up around the outside of Alonso, Hamilton fell down to eighth place as the enormity of the event had clearly impacted his usual composure.

With the Ferraris first and second, Raikkonen moved into the lead with Massa not putting up much resistance through the pitstop sequence. With a dream 1-2, in the correct order, Raikkonen had done all that was possible, but where would Hamilton finish?

The British driver had just embarked on a comeback drive from his eighth place, recovering to sixth, when his car suffered a mysterious gearbox malady that saw him slow to a crawl. Falling to 18th place before he managed to get his car moving again, he threw everything that he could at the remainder of his afternoon, finishing seventh.

This meant he lost the title by a single point to Raikkonen, drawing level on points with Alonso, having had a very strong lead over both with two races to go. It had been a massive choke from driver and team and, over the years, all sorts of conspiracy theories have swirled about the events of China and Brazil.

For context, 2007 was the year of McLaren’s infamous ‘Spygate’ incident with Ferrari, which landed Ron Dennis’ team with a massive $100 million fine and disqualification from the Constructors’ Championship.

While the drivers were given immunity to finish out the championship, the unusual and near-impossible circumstances of Raikkonen’s defeat of both Hamilton and Alonso meant rumours about whether a secret agreement between the FIA and McLaren to ensure defeat to Ferrari was part of the punishment…

Honourable chokes and near-chokes:

• Damon Hill, 1995. Equipped with arguably the fastest car of the season, Hill and Schumacher weren’t separated by much through the first half of the year. But Hill made an error in judgment attempting to pass Schumacher at Silverstone, taking both out. Hill ran into the back of Schumacher again at Monza, and lost out in battle, despite being on the right tyres, to Schumacher in Belgium, and also spun out at the Nurburgring.
• Sebastian Vettel, 2018. Halfway through the F1 2018 championship, Vettel and Hamilton had been neck-and-neck, with the German driver having just defeated the British driver at Silverstone. But a costly error while leading at Hockenheim saw Vettel’s championship tilt fall apart, with Hamilton eventually taking a comfortable fifth title.
• Mika Hakkinen, 1999. While Hakkinen would go on to secure the title in the final race, the Finn appeared to have mentally relaxed following Michael Schumacher’s leg-breaking accident at Silverstone. A raft of poorly executed races was topped off by a driver error while leading at Monza, and a solitary point in the changeable conditions at the Nurburgring. But, following Schumacher’s return in Malaysia, Hakkinen re-engaged to put in a perfect drive under serious pressure at Suzuka to clinch the title over Eddie Irvine by just two points.

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