Hamilton vs Verstappen – the championship deciding crashes from F1's past

Moss would in fact retire and Brabham finish fourth after famously pushing his Cooper over the line when it ran out the fuel.

These results would be academic though, as Brooks was shunted from behind on lap 1 by his own Ferrari team-mate, Wolfgang von Trips.

The Brit was known for having a rapid yet controlled approach to driving, and so underwent a two-minute pitstop to inspect the damage. He would valiantly fight back from 15th to third but it wasn’t enough to take the title.

“I resolved never to risk my life driving a sub-standard car beyond the limits of its capabilities,” he told Simon Taylor in 2013. “Von Trips had hit my right rear wheel and suspension. It would have been much easier to keep going, but I’m proud that I made myself stop. I knew it’d put paid to my title chances, but I had to be true to my resolution.”

Contrasts could be made with Hamilton at Saudi Arabia last weekend who, wisely or foolishly, carried on with his damaged front wing, shedding bits of carbon fibre as he went.

Graham Hill / Lorenzo Bandini – 1964 Mexican GP

Halfway through the 1964 season-ender, John Surtees’ chances of winning the world title looked to have gone – but no-one had reckoned with one of the most exciting finishes to a championship ever.

Jim Clark had it the toughest out of his rivals as the F1 circus pulled into Mexico – the Scot had to win the race to stand any chance of being crowned. Graham Hill could afford to take it relatively easy, ‘only’ needing finish third to take the title as long as Surtees didn’t win, a scenario which would hand ‘Il Grande John’ the championship.

Then, a series of unfortunate events for everyone but Surtees unfolded. Early on Hill was duelling for third with Lorenzo Bandini, while his Ferrari team-mate Surtees was running a distant fifth. Then the crucial crash came.

The Italian accidentally ran into the back of Hill’s BRM, sending it into the barriers and damaging his exhaust. Hill would send Bandini an LP vinyl of advanced driving lessons for Christmas in dry response.

Having started from pole, Clark was now leading with the championship seemingly his before his Lotus agonisingly broke down on the last lap.

Ferrari then ordered Bandini, who was occupying second after his early prang, to let Surtees past with a few corners to go, meaning the Brit stole the championship from under Hill’s nose by one point.

Ayrton Senna / Alain Prost – 1989 Japanese GP

It was 25 years before a shunt again contributed to the outcome of a title showdown, and the images associated with the next one are perhaps the most recognisable in F1’s history.

Ayrton Senna had to win both in Japan and at the final in Australia to beat McLaren team-mate Alain Prost and become ’89 champion.

Removing the Gurney flap on his McLaren’s rear wing meant the Frenchman had superior straight-line speed at Suzuka, managing to jump his pole-sitting team-mate to take the lead and leave Senna in pursuit.

The positions remained the same until lap 36, when Schumacher finally cracked, slithering across the grass and hitting the wall at the East Terrace corner. The German dragged his damaged Benetton back onto the track just as Hill came up behind him.

Seeing a gap, the Williams driver dived down the inside, only for Schumacher to appear to wilfully turn into him. The German ended up in barriers, Hill’s car was terminally damaged – Schumacher was champion.

The Britain was unequivocal in his analysis of the incident for Motor Sport years later.

“Michael took me out,” he said. “Typically, my first impulse was to blame myself. I thought, ‘That was a crap overtaking manoeuvre, Damon’. There was an open door, and I went through it, and across he came, Boom! I didn’t know his car had gone off the road, I didn’t know it was damaged. But if you watch the replays there’s no question it was deliberate. Lots of drivers would have done the same. You never know – I might have done it myself…”

Could we see a similar scenario this weekend?

Jacques Villeneuve / Michael Schumacher – 1997 European GP

Schumacher would try an almost identical manoeuvre on Jacques Villeneuve three years later – but this time it didn’t quite come off.

Again like in Adelaide, again like Verstappen, Schumacher held the championship advantage. Leading by one point, the now-Ferrari driver just needed to make sure Villeneuve did no better than him and he was champion.

An extraordinary qualifying session saw the two title contenders plus the Canadian’s Williams stablemate Heinz-Harald Frentzen all set the exactly same time.

Villeneuve was on pole, with Schumacher second, but Ferrari’s man got the jump at the start. The Canadian sat behind Schumacher for 40 laps, working himself up for a move at the ‘Dry Sack’ corner.

Diving down the inside, it was clear the Williams driver had the corner, so Schumacher resorted to extreme measures. He turned right abruptly and the Ferrari’s front left wheel smashed into Villeneuve’s sidepod.

This time however, it didn’t work out for Schumacher, as he was sent into the gravel trap and the title was Villeneuve’s. Some might have felt it was karma coming back to bite Schumacher three years later.

“Suddenly he realised I was there, so he turned away and then he turned in again,” Villeneuve told Adam Cooper in 2016. “He did it badly, because he didn’t hit my wheels, he hit my sidepod.”

Quite. In a bid to draw a line under Schumacher’s tactic, stewards stripped him of all 78 points he had won that season and it’s an outcome that remains today, should the Hamilton and Verstappen fight really turn sour in Abu Dhabi.

But despite the draconian threat, after all the recriminations of an incident packed season, we might just as easily see an equally controversial end to the year as some of these examples.