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Who is the most controversial Formula 1 world champion?

by YPB Team

Every name here has a title and an asterisk somebody insists on adding. Deliberate collisions, team orders, stewards' rooms and one retirement nobody saw coming.

  1. Michael Schumacher — ranked #11
    Michael Schumacher
    Seven titles alongside the collisions at Adelaide in 1994 and Jerez in 1997, and the Monaco qualifying stop in 2006.
  2. Lewis Hamilton — ranked #22
    Lewis Hamilton
    Seven titles alongside the Silverstone collision with Verstappen in 2021 and the disputed Abu Dhabi finish that cost him an eighth.
  3. Ayrton Senna — ranked #33
    Ayrton Senna
    Three titles and two Suzuka collisions with Prost that decided the 1989 and 1990 championships.
  4. Alain Prost — ranked #44
    Alain Prost
    Four titles, the other half of the Suzuka crashes, and a reputation for winning politics as well as races.
  5. Nelson Piquet — ranked #55
    Nelson Piquet
    Three titles and a habit of insulting rivals in print that would end a career today.
  6. Fernando Alonso — ranked #66
    Fernando Alonso
    Two titles, then the centre of the 2007 McLaren spy affair and the 2008 Singapore race his team-mate was told to crash.
  7. Max Verstappen — ranked #77
    Max Verstappen
    Four titles won with a defensive style that has repeatedly forced the stewards to rewrite their own guidelines.
  8. Sebastian Vettel — ranked #88
    Sebastian Vettel
    Four titles and the 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix, where he ignored a direct team order and passed his team-mate.
  9. Nico Rosberg — ranked #99
    Nico Rosberg
    One title taken from his own team-mate amid a season of collisions, then immediate retirement.
  10. James Hunt — ranked #1010
    James Hunt
    The 1976 title decided partly in appeal rooms, won by a driver who treated the paddock's rules as optional.
  11. Jacques Villeneuve — ranked #1111
    Jacques Villeneuve
    The 1997 champion who spent the era criticising the sport out loud and was stripped of his Suzuka result.
  12. Damon Hill — ranked #1212
    Damon Hill
    The 1996 champion whose title came a year after the Adelaide collision that ended his own challenge.
  13. Niki Lauda — ranked #1313
    Niki Lauda
    Three-time champion who walked away from the 1976 title decider in the rain and was judged for it for decades.
  14. Keke Rosberg — ranked #1414
    Keke Rosberg
    Took the 1982 title with a single win in a season so chaotic that eleven drivers won races.

#Formula-152#Drivers67#Motorsport89#Champions7

Comments

Jerez 1997 cost one champion a season's results and Abu Dhabi 2021 turned on a safety car, and both records are ranked here: https://youpick.best/articles/hamilton-vs-schumacher-ranked https://youpick.best/articles/senna-vs-prost-ranked

YP
ypb-team·Aug 21·
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