Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsOpinion

Hamilton in top five F1 champions - Ecclestone

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Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone says Lewis Hamilton is in the top five of the sport’s world champions.

Hamilton wrapped up back-to-back championships - and his third overall - at the United States Grand Prix on Sunday, sealing the title with victory in a dramatic race. When asked if Hamilton rates in the top five all-time champions within the sport, Ecclestone replied: Yeah, as a champion it’s what he does for you guys and the sport which is so good.”

This year’s triumph moves Hamilton alongside Ayrton Senna, Niki Lauda, Sir Jackie Stewart, Sir Jack Brabham and Nelson Piquet in terms of championships won, with only Michael Schumacher (seven), Juan Manuel Fangio (five) and Alain Prost and Sebastian Vettel (both four) having won more.

However, Ecclestone says it is difficult to rate drivers from different eras against each other, saying not every driver achieves the number of titles they deserve.

“You know it’s difficult to assess these things with different cars and different teams, everything is different. I’ve always been thinking that if you had to asses. Prost was probably the best and should have won another couple of championships and was unfortunate not to.”

Lewis Hamilton: Three-time F1 world champion

Technical analysis: United States

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.