The gloves in the battle for the championship between Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel finally came off in Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Vettel’s controversial move under the safety car that saw him pull up alongside Hamilton and swerve his Ferrari into the Mercedes in what appeared to be a fit of road rage has turned the so far respectful dynamic between the pair into a bitter rivalry.
But it’s not the first time such a thing has happened and it won’t be the last. Here we take look at some controversial collisions between championship rivals from over the years.
Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, Japanese Grand Prix 1989
The relationship between McLaren teammate Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna had already descended into acrimony by the time the Formula One circus headed to Suzuka for the penultimate round of the 1989 season.
Reigning champion Senna had to win to have any hope of keeping the title battle alive into the final round. Prost, however, would be world champion even if neither McLaren finished. Senna started from pole, Prost alongside.
The Frenchman, who would be leaving McLaren for Ferrari at the end of the year, got the better start. He steadily pulled away but then, after the stops, Senna began to reel him in.
Round and round they went, lap after lap, Prost leading, Senna catching. The tension built. On lap 46 Senna exited the quick 130R left hander right on Prost’s tail. It was now or never. He lunged down the inside of the sister red and white McLaren under braking for the tight chicane.
Prost, cunning as ever, saw the move coming and moved to close the door. The two cars made contact. Wheels locked, they slid lazily off onto the escape road.
Prost undid his seatbelts and got out, retiring from the race. Senna restarted his McLaren with a push from the marshals. He got going again, but needing a front-wing change, was forced back into the pits.
Alessandro Nannini in the Benetton inherited the lead but, now back out of the pits, Senna set about chasing him down. With just four of the 53 laps to go, he caught and passed the Benetton to seize the lead and win the race. Or so he thought.
The Brazilian had crossed the line first but was disqualified for having used the escape road to rejoin the race. Many, including Senna, saw Prost’s move as being calculated and deliberate. The manner of Senna’s disqualification also rankled. But, that was it.
With both McLarens out, Prost was world champion for the third time. Little did he know then of the implications the events of that afternoon would have exactly a year later.
Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, Japanese Grand Prix 1990
One year on and it was once again the Suzuka circuit that set the stage for a dramatic championship showdown between former teammates and still-fierce rivals Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna. Except, this time the roles were reversed.
Prost, now driving for Ferrari, was on the back foot and needed to win to keep his title hopes alive. Senna, meanwhile, would be world champion if neither finished. The battle was on.
Senna once again took pole position ahead of Prost in second. And here the tensions that would boil over on race day began simmering.
Senna and McLaren wanted pole position moved away from the pits to the clean side of the track on the racing line. Stewards initially accepted McLaren’s request but the French president of F1’s governing body, Jean-Marie Balestre, who was close to Prost, intervened to stop pole position being moved across the track.
The politics compounded the events from a year ago and Senna was incensed. Just like a year ago, Prost, starting from the grippier side of the track, jumped Senna at the start to seize the lead. Except unlike last year, he would barely keep it for a few hundred meters.
As the scarlet Ferrari, on the outside, took its line to turn into the first corner, the red and white McLaren on the inside ploughed straight into it. The contact sent both cars off into the gravel trap in a cloud of dust.
As it cleared, it showed Prost and Senna walking away from the mangled wrecks of their cars, Prost absolutely livid, Senna the world champion.
Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill, Australian Grand Prix 1994
Another title showdown, this time between Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill.
The 1994 season was the first time Schumacher, driving for Benetton and having made his debut at the Belgian Grand Prix in 1991, had challenged for the championship.
Hill, son of double world champion Graham, had manfully stepped up to lead the challenge for Williams after the death of his team-mate Ayrton Senna at Imola.
It had been a year of controversy, with Benetton at the heart of it for the team’s alleged use of banned driver aids. Schumacher, moreover, was disqualified from two races and banned from two more.
And so it was that despite winning six of the first seven races, the German arrived at the Australian season-finale just one point clear of Hill.
Schumacher qualified second behind the returning Nigel Mansell, with Hill third. Both title protagonists jumped the veteran at the start and ran away in the lead, Schumacher ahead, Hill giving chase.
As Schumacher led, Hill piled the pressure. Things finally came to a head when Schumacher made a mistake, ran wide and hit the wall. As he made his way back onto the track, clearly limping, Hill sensed his opportunity and dived down the inside.
Schumacher turned in. The two cars made contact. The Benetton was launched up onto two wheels and went head on into the barrier and out of the race. Hill soldiered on back to the pits. But the damage was done. His left front suspension was broken, his title hopes shattered.
The cynical saw his move on Hill as being deliberate. Schumacher said his car, after that first impact with the wall, had been undriveable.
The authorities put it down as a racing incident and Schumacher, then just 25 years old, won the first of what would be a record seven world championships.
Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve, European Grand Prix 1997
Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve went into the season-ending European Grand Prix at Jerez locked in a battle for the championship.
Double champion Schumacher, now at Ferrari, was aiming to win the Italian team’s first drivers’ title since 1979. Villeneuve, driving for Williams in only his second season in F1, was on the cusp of his maiden world title.
Schumacher led Villeneuve by one point. This would be a showdown to remember.
In qualifying, Villeneuve, Schumacher and Villeneuve’s team-mate Heinz-Harald Frentzen set exactly the same lap time down to the thousandth of a second. Villeneuve having set the time first, though, started from pole with Schumacher alongside.
The German shot off into the lead at the start. Villeneuve dropped back behind Frentzen before being let back through into second place on the team’s orders. The leaders came in for their first round of stops, Schumacher kept the lead. He was still ahead after the second series of pit stops.
Everything was going according to plan. But Villeneuve was now catching him. On lap 48 the Williams made an optimistic lunge down the inside of the Ferrari at the tight, right-handed Dry Sack corner.
Seeing the Williams come barrelling alongside, Schumacher opened the door to avoid a collision. But then he turned back in again. He ran into the side of Villeneuve’s car and slid off into the gravel and out of the race.
Villeneuve, however, continued and came by lap after lap as Schumacher stood on the tyre barrier and watched. In the end, he let the McLarens of Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard through to take the win, and finished third to win the championship.
Schumacher, meanwhile, was stripped of all his points and excluded from the championship, the first and so far only time a driver has been disqualified from a the championship.
Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, Belgian Grand Prix 2014
The gloves in the title battle between former childhood friends and Mercedes teammates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg had already come off. But events of the Belgian Grand Prix only escalated the tensions further.
Heading through the fearsome Eau Rouge and up the Kemmel straight on the second lap, Rosberg, chasing Hamilton, pulled out of the Briton’s slipstream. Hamilton held the inside into the right-left sequence of corners at Les Combes.
The corner was his but Rosberg refused to yield. The two cars collided. Rosberg’s front wing cut a chunk of rubber out of Lewis Hamilton’s left rear tyre. The damage put the Briton out of the race.
Rosberg finished second to move 29 points clear at the top of the overall standings. The controversy erupted after the race with Hamilton telling the press that Rosberg in the post-race debrief had admitted to colliding with him deliberately as he wanted to prove a point.
Team boss Toto Wolff played that down, however, saying that while Rosberg hadn’t crashed into Hamilton on purpose, he didn’t try to avoid contact either.
Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, Austrian Grand Prix 2016
Yet another flashpoint in the Rosberg-Hamilton rivalry came at last year’s Austrian Grand Prix.
It was the last lap. Rosberg led, but his brakes were fading. Hamilton was second. Sensing his opportunity, Hamilton made a bid for the lead around the outside of the tight turn two.
Rosberg stood his ground, turning in unusually late even for a driver defending his position, and ran into the side of Hamilton’s car. Hamilton, having taken to the run-off with nowhere left to go, survived and won.
Rosberg’s victory hopes, however, after a sterling drive from sixth on the grid, were wrecked and he instead crawled home fourth in a mangled car.
Stewards investigated Rosberg after the race and held him responsible for causing a collision, adding ten seconds to his race time.
It was the third time in five races the Mercedes pair had touched on track and the Austria incident prompted Mercedes management to draw up a revised set of rules of engagement for its drivers.