A fifth world title would confirm the British driver as not only the best of his generation but as one of the all-time greats

Perhaps, when Lewis Hamilton has his fifth Formula One world championship secured, he might allow himself to reflect on just how far he has come. The boy from Stevenage who loved karting is now a man breathing the rarefied air at the very top of his sport. If he closes out the title at Sunday’s US Grand Prix, the celebrations will be long and loud. He will deserve every moment, his performance this year should be acknowledged as capping one of the great modern sporting achievements.

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The arithmetic is simple. If Hamilton wins at the Circuit of the Americas, Sebastian Vettel must finish second to keep the title fight alive. If Hamilton finishes eight points clear of his Ferrari rival, he takes the championship regardless.

There are other numbers, hard to ignore. His record 81 pole positions, nine this season, after his success on Saturday; the 71 career victories, nine in 2018. Then there is the company he now keeps. With a fifth title he will have equalled Juan Manuel Fangio and will be only two behind Michael Schumacher’s record of seven.

This achievement has been referred to repeatedly, to the extent that its impact has perhaps been dulled. It bears repeating and consideration. In the 69 championships since 1950 only two drivers have won as many titles. Two. Both are considered to be greats of the sport. Hamilton has said he never dreamed of equalling Fangio, such was scale of the Argentinian’s achievement. Now he is within range of catching Schumacher, a tally expected never to be matched.

Comparing eras in motor racing is almost impossible, a speculative, subjective game. Yet perhaps it carries some weight when coming from one of the finest drivers of this generation. On Thursday Fernando Alonso was happy to place the British driver in exalted company. “Michael, Fangio, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Lewis would be my top five,” Alonso said. “Lewis winning five titles and matching Fangio is a great achievement and, if one driver had to do that from our generation, then I am happy it is Lewis because he has shown the talent and the commitment.”

Alonso is retiring from F1 at the end of this year and his opinion has the air of an honest assessment. Hamilton has earned it. His performance this season has been nigh on perfect. Ruthless and relentless, he has shown maturity, judgment, racecraft and decisive aggression at almost all the right moments.

He took his first title for McLaren in 2008 but has won three for Mercedes in the past four years. They have had the dominant car for much of that period but this season attempting to dismiss his achievement as the driver with the fastest car winning will simply not stand. Ferrari and Mercedes were evenly matched at the start but as the development battle wore on it was the Scuderia who had the superior car for much of the campaign.

It is Hamilton, however, who has made the difference. Vettel has only five wins, while Valtteri Bottas, the British driver’s teammate in identical machinery, has been comprehensively beaten. Qualifying was 11-6 in Hamilton’s favour before yesterday and he has beaten Bottas in 12 races (discounting Russia, where Hamilton benefited from team orders).

Yet, again, the numbers do not really tell the story. While Vettel has repeatedly made costly errors, Hamilton has been impeccable. He has had meetings where he has not quite hooked it up – Bahrain, China, Baku and Canada – but ensured solid finishes in all of them. Indeed it is hard to identify a major mistake he has made all year. Perhaps the only real driver error was his wheelspin from pole at the British Grand Prix that cost him places and ultimately left him vulnerable to being hit by Kimi Räikkönen on the first lap.

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Yet even that proved instructive of how well he is driving. He has been repeatedly able to reset and reapply himself after setbacks. At Silverstone he recovered from the back to claim second. After a gearbox penalty in Bahrain he claimed third. Most significant of all, after a mechanical problem in qualifying at Hockenheim, from 14th on the grid he mastered the field and the wet to take a win – as Vettel crashed out on a slippery track. It was the race that perhaps summed up their seasons.

Hamilton has combined this unceasing control with some sublime moments. His qualifying lap in the wet in Hungary was superlative and enough to ensure an unexpected win. It was bettered only by the lap of his career in Singapore to take pole and another win.

At Monza, the Scuderia’s home circuit, he delivered a crushing blow: first by dancing round the outside of Vettel at the Roggia chicane, provoking another error from the German, and then by passing Räikkönen at the same corner to take the win. Hamilton said it was up there with his greatest drives and it was. Three wins in a row followed as, like the Aussies of old, he remorselessly crushed the hope from his opposition.

Such has been his mastery of every aspect of his driving this season, it perhaps belies how hard he is working. Hamilton has displayed a disarming ability to make the exceptional look effortless yet it has required the greatest commitment, as he has acknowledged. “I have given my hardest throughout the year,” he said. “This has been the best performing year so far in my career.”

Twenty-five years after he began karting at Rye House in Hertfordshire Hamilton has presented his best and it has been simply untouchable. The air may be thinner at the summit but, should he wrap it up in Austin, Hamilton has more than earned his right to share it with the greats.