Lewis Hamilton's best comeback victories after Spanish GP success

Lewis Hamilton's Spanish Grand Prix victory on Sunday was the latest in the Mercedes star's litany of comeback victories.

Time and time again, the three-time world champion has taken knocks in campaigns, and time and time again he has answered his critics with a victory.

Here we run down five of his previous best, as well as his latest, remarkable comebacks.

2008 British Grand Prix

Consecutive finishes outside of the points had the young Hamilton under pressure. Running into the back of Kimi Raikkonen in Canada led to his retirement and a 10-place grid penalty in France, where he could only recover from 13th on the grid to 10th.

In damp conditions at his home race, however, Hamilton was peerless as he stormed to a win that remains career-defining to this day. From fourth on the grid, Hamilton burst past Raikkonen, Heikki Kovalainen and Mark Webber to take a lead he would not relinquish. As more rain sent the field behind him into a spin, Hamilton went on to secure victory by an enormous 65-second margin.

2009 Hungarian Grand Prix

Qualifying mix-ups in Turkey (finished 13th) and back at Silverstone (16th) were compounded as a first-lap puncture left Hamilton scratching for an 18th-place finish at the German Grand Prix.

But the response came at the Hungaroring, as former McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso ceded first position with a wonky pit-stop that left him with three wheels and Hamilton won for the first time in 11 races.

2012 Hungarian Grand Prix

Three years later and, once again, Hamilton headed to Budapest on the back of a disappointing outing in Germany. His 100th F1 race had ended in retirement after a strong Saturday was wrecked by a puncture and gearbox failure.

But no man has won the Hungarian Grand Prix more than Hamilton's five times and this performance was typical of his mastery of the venue as he stormed to victory from pole position, holding off fast-finishing challenges from Lotus duo Romain Grosjean and Raikkonen.

2016 Monaco Grand Prix

Last year's Spanish Grand Prix was the boiling point in Hamilton and Nico Rosberg's long-standing grudge match as the Mercedes duo contacted on lap one and suffered the embarrassment of a double DNF.

With Rosberg having won the first four races of the season before the Barcelona blunder, Hamilton was 43 points behind his team-mate heading to the Monaco Grand Prix, where he had not won in eight years. Daniel Ricciardo qualified on pole, with Rosberg second, but wet conditions once again saw Hamilton star as he was allowed past his team-mate before hunting down the Australian, with a calamitous Red Bull pit-stop sealing the deal.

2016 Austrian Grand Prix (and British, Hungarian and German Grands Prix)

A bizarre weekend in Baku, featuring a crash in qualifying and Hamilton spending 12 laps in an underpowered engine mode let Rosberg streak clear again in the title race.

Four races later, Hamilton had turned a 24-point deficit into a 19-point lead in the standings - holding off a last-lap tangle with Rosberg for victory in Austria before taking a record-breaking British Grand Prix win and jumping his team-mate off the line for victories in Hungary and Germany.

2017 Spanish Grand Prix

It is hard to remember Hamilton having as anonymous a race as he did at the Russian Grand Prix this season, as new Mercedes colleague Valtteri Bottas ran away for his maiden F1 race win.

But the 32-year-old was front and centre in Barcelona, a year on from the Rosberg crash, as the burgeoning Hamilton-Vettel fight was finally played out on the asphalt, leaving the German to lament Hamilton passing him "like a train" as he completed a pole-win-fastest-lap hat-trick to keep a thrilling season racing along.