MadMax wrote: ↑15 Nov 2022, 21:52
RonMexico wrote: ↑15 Nov 2022, 21:33
Rosberg won in 2016 at Suzuka. He put it out of Hamiltons reach then and managed to secure the second places he needed from there on in. Had Hamilton won that race and won out the rest of the races he would have been champion.
Hamilton lost the season in Malaysia when he was leading and had Merc's only reliability retirement of the year. He lost 25 points in that moment and ended the season just 5 points behind Rosberg. Without that engine failure, Hamilton was World Champion in 2016 and Rosberg's excellent end of season performance of a win and 4 seconds wouldn't have prevented it.
If we are playing silly games, how about this.
If Abu Dhabi 2021 ended under the Safety Car Lewis would have been World Champion 2021.
But if Silverstone 2021 didn't result in a retirement for Max then Lewis & Max would not have been level on points going into the final round.
Supposing Lewis still won in Silverstone and Max was second, that would have been + 18 for Max going into the last race, Second in AD would have been plenty enough.
Monza, yes ok, If Lewis won in Monza and Max came second that would have been a Net +7 points going into the last race leaving Max still 11 points ahead, again second would have been enough.
I'm sure you can come up with a few more scenario's, but it matters very little as who knows what way other races in any given season would have actually panned out in any given season if earlier results were different with people under more or less pressure in later races as a result.