Last chance saloon

Whatever you made of the outcome of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, surely no one would deny it was the most exciting finale of F1’s turbo-hybrid era: the two title protagonists separated by exactly zero points, locked in combat on the last lap of the last race of the championship.

But sift through the annals of motorsport history and you’ll find many a championship battle that ended under similarly gripping circumstances. Hamilton ripping the title from Massa’s grasp on the last corner of the last lap of the 2008 season, a turbo problem denying Toyota victory at Le Mans with just a lap and a half remaining in 2016, and Carlos Sainz’s engine letting go just 300 meters (plus the following road section) from a guaranteed third World Rally Championship title in 1998.