Lewis Hamilton is a seven-time World Champion, but he has three ‘lost’ victories that should have made him a ten-time champion.

The 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix will be noteworthy for how the championship was decided and for Lewis Hamilton missing out on a record-breaking ninth World Championship.

But what if, by the time that night at Yas Marina, he should have been a 10-time champion?

Yes, forget about Abu Dhabi. Hamilton has missed out on three World Championships that would have rendered Abu Dhabi irrelevant due to mechanical gremlins and a forgotten mishap.

You might add 2012 to the list because McLaren had the fastest vehicle, but recurrent operational and reliability difficulties deprived Hamilton a chance to challenge Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso in his penultimate year before switching to Mercedes in 2013.

2007

Hamilton set the tone for his F1 career early on, dancing the McLaren around the outside of Alonso at Turn 1 in his debut race in Australia. Nothing beats telling the World Champion what you think of his car’s #1 sticker.

Tensions between the two had been simmering all season, with the infamous Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying a flashpoint that had been festering since Monaco, when Hamilton was practically told to keep place behind Alonso – multi-12, if you will.

With a three-way title fight looming, good cop Bernie Ecclestone managed to persuade bad cop Max Mosley not to kick Hamilton or Alonso out of the Drivers’.

Hamilton led the way to China with 107 points, Alonso had 95, and Kimi Raikkonen had 90. Raikkonen has a 17-point deficit to close with only 20 seconds remaining in the race.

To win the championship, Hamilton only needed to finish within one point of Alonso and six points of Raikkonen.

However, McLaren, which was engaged in open battle with Alonso – their own driver – held Hamilton out on worn intermediates so long that he skated into a gravel trap when eventually pitting as Raikkonen won.

Going into Brazil, the standings were Hamilton 107, Alonso 103, and Raikkonen 100.

Hamilton was thrown wide at Turn 4 on the first lap before gearbox issues dropped him far down the field and forced him into a recovery drive, although tire degradation was significant.

He needed sixth to win the championship if Raikkonen won, but he could only manage seventh after Raikkonen fortuitously jumped teammate Felipe Massa in the final pit stops…

Raikkonen won by a point, and Hamilton has since hinted that he now knows what happened behind-the-scenes politically, but that he cannot discuss it because his aspirations of being a rookie World Champion were dashed.

2010

This is a lost title for Hamilton that originates from his DNF with two laps to go in the Spanish Grand Prix.

Hamilton was running second behind Mark Webber when a tyre rim failure threw him into the Turn 3 barrier, costing him 18 points and giving Vettel and Alonso three more.

As the statistics below show, Hamilton finished the four-way shootout in Abu Dhabi with 240 points, 16 behind champion Vettel.

If the lost 18 points are added, and Vettel forfeits the three bonus points he received in Barcelona, Hamilton wins the championship by five points.

Had things gone his way in 2007, victory in 2010 would have been his third in four years in F1.

2016

The majority of the speculation of losing the 2016 championship stemmed from Hamilton’s engine failure while leading in Malaysia, one of several that year.

But that was not the only thing that cost him. Fluffing his starts from pole position on many occasions did.

He started on pole in Australia, Bahrain, Spain, and Italy, but failed to win any of them, famously collapsing in Spain with teammate Nico Rosberg.

Hamilton finished second to Rosberg in Melbourne and Monza, with a 14-point swing each, but only third in Bahrain, with a 20-point swing to Rosberg.

The then-annual funk weekend in Azerbaijan also cost him a 30-point swing, as Rosberg won and Hamilton finished sixth due to engine setting issues.

In the end, Rosberg won the championship by just five points, and then did the biggest mic drop of all time by walking away and quitting, ensuring Hamilton could never reclaim the title.