How Does Lewis Hamilton Compare to Past British F1 Greats?

In winning last month's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton secured his second Formula One championship.

Soon after crossing the line under the lights of the Yas Marina Circuit, the 29-year-old stopped his car to pick up a British flag from a track marshal, which he waved all the way back to parc ferme and seemed to hold on to until dawn broke.

Hamilton's success, for him, appeared to be as much a national success as it was a personal one, with his latest title also Britain's 15th in F1 history.

The Mercedes driver adding to his 2008 success with McLaren has reopened the debate surrounding the country's best ever F1 star.

And here, we've compared Hamilton to four of his fellow British F1 champions—two-time title winners Graham Hill, Jim Clark and Sir Jackie Stewart as well as 1992 champ Nigel Mansell—to determine where he ranks alongside the nation's most cherished, iconic racers.

Championships

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Hill: Two

Clark: Two

Stewart: Three

Mansell: One

Hamilton: Two

From a title-winning perspective, Stewart is the most successful driver to emerge from British shores, triumphing in 1969, 1971 and 1973. He might have been a four-time world champion, yet missed out on the 1968 crown by 12 points.

Stewart's fellow Scot, Clark, would undoubtedly have gone on to add to his '63 and '65 crowns had he not lost his life in a Formula Two race in '68, a year which began with a win in South Africa—his last F1 appearance—and ended with Hill, his Lotus team-mate, taking a second title.

Mansell, likewise, was unfortunate to end his career with just the one championship, finishing as runner-up on three occasions including the 1986 season, when that tyre failure saw him miss out at the final race.

Hamilton should arguably have joined Stewart on three titles at this point in his career, having lost a 17-point lead to Kimi Raikkonen in the last two events of 2007.

He might also have won the championship in 2010—when he remained in contention until the end—and 2012, but a mixture of driver error, reliability and inconsistency on McLaren's behalf left him trailing.

Race Wins

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Hill: 14

Clark: 25

Stewart: 27

Mansell: 31

Hamilton: 33

Victory in last month's Unites States Grand Prix saw Hamilton pass Mansell's record to become the most successful British driver in Formula One history in terms of race wins.

His 11 wins across the 2014 season—including a career-best run of five straight triumphs—allowed the new world champion to leapfrog not only Mansell but a number of F1 greats including Stewart and Clark, who has the third-best win ratio in the sport's history, as per BBC Sport's Andrew Benson.

Although Hamilton's tally, at the age of 29, is extraordinary, he did have the rare privilege of making his debut in a race-winning car and has remained in high-quality machinery ever since.

Contrast his career path to that of Mansell, who waited until the end of 1985 for his maiden victory, despite making his first F1 appearance over five years earlier.

Pole Positions

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Hill: 13

Clark: 33

Stewart: 17

Mansell: 32

Hamilton: 38

As well as breaking the British record for race wins in 2014, Hamilton also snatched the record for pole positions.

He surpassed Clark's tally in China, his third pole in the opening four events, and added a further four to his tally before the season's end.

Despite being out-qualified by team-mate Nico Rosberg this season, and having lost some of the blistering speed that defined his early career, Hamilton remains the benchmark as far as one-lap pace is concerned in modern F1.

The length of time, though, between Hamilton's maiden and most recent poles was seven years, while Clark's first and last poles were separated by less than six years, despite the Scot competing in an era of fewer races.

The record books may contain Hamilton's name, but it is Clark who is arguably Britain's true King of Qualifying.

Impact and Popularity

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Few drivers in the history of F1 come close to matching the impact of Stewart, who as the most successful competitor since Juan Manuel Fangio at the time of his triumphs became the sport's first superstar, balancing his lofty status with tireless campaigns for safety improvements.

Hill was adored for his razor sharp wit, while Clark was almost a sympathetic figure, the modest farmer who happened to be extremely good at his hobby.

And Mansell, the burly bloke with the moustache and the Brummie accent, was the man of the people, as his "Our Nige" nickname testified.

Hamilton, F1's greatest marketing tool, has attempted to reach out to the masses throughout his career, telling Formula1.com ahead of this year's Monaco Grand Prix, for instance, that he was raised in "a not-great place in Stevenage and lived on a couch in my dad’s apartment."

Yet could you really imagine Silverstone's spectators invading the track to express their admiration of Hamilton as they did with Mansell in '92?

His struggles to be loved are best summed up by The Independent's Michael Calvin, who on the morning of the Mercedes driver's title success wrote: "Lewis Hamilton should be a folk hero. Instead, to many he is as inconsequential as a boy-band member."

Conclusion

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It seems strange to regard a driver with two world championships and almost 150 grand prix starts under his belt as having more in his locker, but it is the reality that faces Hamilton—such is his talent.

Two titles in eight seasons was the bare minimum for the boy wonder who arrived on the grid at Australia 2007 and instantly took Formula One by storm, coming within one point of being the sport's first rookie world champion.

The road since then has been long and winding, but his 2014 success—which saw him shatter two long-standing British records—carries the early hallmarks of a turning point.

With that elusive title No. 2 in the bag, Hamilton should become more self-assured both on and off-track, which can only be bad news for his rivals.

Another crown—surpassing Clark and standing alongside Stewart—would make any debate concerning the United Kingdom's finest F1 driver far more interesting, but another two or even more would put it beyond any doubt.

There is still more to come from Hamilton, who should retire as the best Brit the sport has ever seen.

All statistics in this article, unless stated, have been taken from the official Formula One website.