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MERCEDES' Lewis Hamilton claimed his fourth F1 world driver’s title in last weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix. And that achievement means the Mercedes driver has gone level on F1 championships with Vettel and Alain Prost. Schumacher, with seven, and Juan Manuel Fangio, with five, are now the only men to have won more F1 titles than Hamilton.

The Mexican Grand Prix presented some unexpected results. A first lap collision with Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel pushed both drivers down the race order giving hope to Vettel’s championship hopes. However, a win for Vettel and Hamilton finishing outside the top five was the result needed to keep Vettel’s championship dream alive. The Ferrari driver couldn’t return to the front to offer any chance of moving the championship fight to the next round in Brazil finishing 4th and Hamilton finishing 9th was enough to secure the championship.

The sensation of the race was Red Bull’s Max Verstappen winning by a convincing 19.678 second margin over Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas and Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen a further 54.007 second back with only four cars on the lead lap.

Verstappen has thrown down the gauntlet to the championship establishment for next year’s drivers title.