# Who is the most controversial Formula 1 world champion?

> 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.

*By YPB Team · Published August 8, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/who-is-the-most-controversial-formula-1-world-champion*

---

## Current results (0 votes)

1. **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**
   Seven titles alongside the Silverstone collision with Verstappen in 2021 and the disputed Abu Dhabi finish that cost him an eighth.
3. **Ayrton Senna**
   Three titles and two Suzuka collisions with Prost that decided the 1989 and 1990 championships.
4. **Alain Prost**
   Four titles, the other half of the Suzuka crashes, and a reputation for winning politics as well as races.
5. **Nelson Piquet**
   Three titles and a habit of insulting rivals in print that would end a career today.
6. **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**
   Four titles won with a defensive style that has repeatedly forced the stewards to rewrite their own guidelines.
8. **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**
   One title taken from his own team-mate amid a season of collisions, then immediate retirement.
10. **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**
   The 1997 champion who spent the era criticising the sport out loud and was stripped of his Suzuka result.
12. **Damon Hill**
   The 1996 champion whose title came a year after the Adelaide collision that ended his own challenge.
13. **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**
   Took the 1982 title with a single win in a season so chaotic that eleven drivers won races.

Tags: formula 1, drivers, motorsport, champions