Super 7... F1's Champs that didn't defend their title

And the Mercedes ace is not the first. Next season will be the seventh since the World Championship began in 1950 in which the reigning champion will not be on the grid to begin a title-defence campaign. There have been several different reasons why this has happened – injury, death, self-imposed retirement and contract-and-cash problems.

These are the seven greats who, for reasons that will become clear, didn’t come back to try for another title during a given year.

Juan Manuel Fangio (1952)

The Argentinian was without a drive for 1952, when a technical change to Formula 2-specification cars was mandated. His Alfa Romeo team, with which he’d taken the first of his five titles in 1951, was not at liberty to field a car, so he was a free agent. Nonetheless, he’d agreed to compete in a non-championship race at Monza for Maserati. A nasty smash left him with multiple injuries, including a broken neck, and he spent the year recuperating. Fortunately, four more titles, two of them with Maserati, would eventually follow once he was back to full fitness for 1953.

Mike Hawthorn (1959)

Bow-tie-wearing and pipe-smoking Hawthorn was king of cool in the mid- to late-1950s. Le Mans winner with Jaguar in 1955, he then became Britain’s first Formula 1 World Champion in 1958, after bagging the title with Ferrari by a single point from nemesis Stirling Moss after finishing second to the Vanwall ace in the season-closing Moroccan Grand Prix – an outcome overshadowed by the accident that befell Moss’s team-mate Stuart Lewis-Evans. Soon after deciding he'd had enough and announcing his retirement, Hawthorn was killed in a road accident near Guildford in Surrey in January 1959. The World Champion was not yet 30 years old.

Jochen Rindt (1971)

Another class act for whom fate intervened while he was at the top of his game, Rindt had already won five of the nine races during the 1970 season and headed to the super-fast Monza circuit for the Italian GP in September with a 20-point lead in the Drivers’ Championship. While trying his Lotus 72C with no wings during practice, in a bid to reduce the drag of the Colin Chapman-built machine, he crashed to his death on the flat-out approach to the Parabolica curve. Such was his points lead at the time of his death, no one managed to overhaul his tally in the remaining four races, meaning the Austrian became the first and, to date, only posthumous World Champion.

Jackie Stewart (1974)

The Scot had already confided in team boss and friend Ken Tyrrell. This – 1973 – would be his last season. After five wins in the Tyrrell 006, JYS made sure of his third crown with a stunning drive through the field to fourth in Italy after an early puncture. With two races left – in Canada and the USA – it was supposed to be a farewell tour. Fifth in Canada, a lap in arrears, was followed by the US GP at Watkins Glen. During practice, his Tyrrell team-mate, friend and protégé François Cevert crashed violently to his death, aged just 29. Devastated and despondent, Stewart quit on the spot, choosing not to start what would have been his 100^th Grand Prix. He would never race a Formula 1 car again.

Nigel Mansell (1993)

After taking 27 wins – in two stints – and the 1992 Drivers’ World Championship for his beloved Williams, Mansell managed to fall out with the team over pay demands and a misunderstanding about the nature and timing of Alain Prost’s deal with the squad for 1993. A last-minute reprieve was forthcoming at Monza’s Italian GP – two races after he’d claimed the title in Hungary – but it wasn’t enough to stop the Brit defecting to America to contest – and win! – the CART PPG IndyCar Series with Newman-Haas. Not much time seemed to be a great healer, for Mansell was back in a Williams for 1994, subbing alongside Damon Hill following the death of Ayrton Senna. His final victory, his 28^th for Williams, came in Adelaide in the last race of the year.

Alain Prost (1994)

A sabbatical in 1992 after his very public falling-out with Ferrari half-way through 1991 had recharged the three-time Champion’s batteries and he replaced the America-bound Nigel Mansell for 1993 in the successor to the all-conquering Williams FW14B. He duly romped to a fourth crown, taking 13 pole positions and seven victories in the Renault V10-powered FW15C. After the stars had aligned perfectly for Prost (he had newboy Damon Hill as a team-mate, while bitter rival Ayrton Senna was stuck with Ford V8 power), he called it a day at the end of the year. The clause in his contract preventing Senna from being his team-mate had expired for 1994 so he made way for the Brazilian and went off to make plans to become an F1 team owner.

Nico Rosberg (2017)

Just a few days after clinching his maiden title in Abu Dhabi, Rosberg threw a huge curveball into the Formula 1 paddock by announcing he’d achieved his life’s ambition and didn’t fancy going toe-to-toe with Lewis Hamilton again in 2017. That was it, he was done, the strain of 2016, on top of the anguish of playing second-fiddle to Hamilton in 2014-2015, had taken its toll and he would be putting family first from now on. A few ill-informed observers bemoaned his ‘cop-out’ decision, while the majority lauded his honest appraisal. And the battle for one of the most coveted seats in F1 for 2017 rages on…