Leclerc had dominated after retaking the lead following a poor start and was on course for a maiden victory when his hybrid system failed.

Hamilton closed an eight-second deficit within three laps and swept by for his first win of 2019 with nine laps to go.

Leclerc would have slipped down to fourth behind Hamilton’s team-mate Valtteri Bottas and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen but was saved by a late race safety car.

As victory slipped from his fingers, the despair in Leclerc’s voice was clear as he asked the team what had happened, and was told he had suffered a failure of the MGU-H, the part of the hybrid system that recovers energy from the turbo.

It cost him 40km/h on the straights and left him helpless as first Hamilton and then Bottas closed in at five seconds a lap.

“Oh my God,” he said, as he saw a fairytale victory slip from his grasp on a weekend on which he had destroyed his four-time world champion team-mate Sebastian Vettel.

Vettel, meanwhile, made yet another high-profile error, spinning his car while being passed by Hamilton for what at the time was second place with 20 laps to go.

Vettel already needed a pit stop for fresh tyres, but he also suffered a front wing failure as he toured around to the pits, and the German finished fifth, two places behind his team-mate.

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Red Bull‘s Max Verstappen was victorious in the race, finishing ahead of Sebastian Vettel who finished second and Kimi Raikkonnen who was third on the podium.

The Brit poses in front of a pitboard in the pitlane that marks his championship success with a ‘HiFive’ hashtag

But in the end that mattered little for Hamilton, who now can’t be caught in the drivers’ standings with two more races left in the season.

Ever since joining the McLaren as an intelligently talented 13 year old, Hamilton’s stock has only gone up as he achieved the rare feat of meeting expectations with results.

His supreme talent has guided him to four world championships in the past five years to go alongside the one he won in just his second ever season, all the while breaking the mould from what many still consider to be a privileged, white man’s sport to sit on the cusp of becoming the sport’s greatest-ever champion.

After all, 33-year-old Hamilton is just the first black driver to race in Formula One, let alone win world championships.

Hamilton struggled to the end despite feeling vibrations in his car, fretting over his tyres in exasperated radio exchanges, and haemorrhaging time as his rubber gave him a mighty migraine.

Formula One multiple champions

The Briton now sits joint second on the overall list of Formula One world champions, level with Argentine great Juan Manuel Fangio but still two behind Michael Schumacher whose seat at Mercedes Hamilton moved into when the seven-time champion retired for the second time in 2012.

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