Michael Schumacher, Juan Manuel Fangio, Alan Prost and Sebastian Vettel are a talented and uber-successful group of drivers in their own rights.
But the thing that binds them is the fact that they are the select group of drivers that have won at least four Formula 1 world titles.
Now, Lewis Hamilton is set to join that group of drivers with the Mercedes driver on the verge of winning the 2017 title.
Sixty-six points clear of Ferrari's Vettel with just three races to go, the title is all but his and cements an era of relative dominance in which he will have won three drivers' titles in four years to add to the 2008 triumph.
2017 has also seen him break Schumacher's all time poles mark and caps a half-season in which he not only overturned Vettel's championship lead but seems to have a found a higher sense of purpose.
James Allison, Technical Director at Mercedes GP, Sebastian Vettel of Germany and Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain and Mercedes GP, former President of the USA Bill Clinton, and Kimi Raikkonen of Finland and Ferrari celebrate on the podium during the United States Formula One Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas on October 22, 2017 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Maggie Boyd / Sipa Usa)
"He's earned it and he's done all the right things at the right time and I think this year he's shown a great deal of maturity which indicates how he's developed over the 10 seasons or so he's been in Formula 1," former Northern Irish Formula 1 driver John Watson told Joe as he joined us to reflect on the culmination of the season and Hamilton's growth.
"He's now grown into being a very smart race driver but still has got that side of youth that enables him when it comes to the out and out qualifying lap or the lap that he needs to consolidate his position. That's still there."
Echoing Hamilton's former team-mate Jenson Button's point about his fellow Englishman having the strongest racing gift and natural ability to harness raw speed in the paddock, Watson continued: "He's got that raw talent, raw speed and we've seen that time and again qualifying for god knows how many seasons, so that is one of the key ingredients a successful Grand Prix driver needs. It's not the most important one but it's the most valuable one to have."
Adding that the mental strength that the top drivers needs, he added that "there's a lot going on between his ears too".
Turning to the topic of modern F1 driving standards in general and the way that new track designs have given much leeway in terms of run-off areas, Watson believes modern drivers are not staying within the track limits.
"Do they drive within the track limits? More chance of being struck by lightning. In fact if they were struck by lightning, they might realise there is danger out there. They're abusing track limits and when they get penalised, they start to cry like little babies," he said, also adding that Hamilton has spoken about how the sport has been less challenging in that regard in comparison to those that came before him in Watson's era during the 1970s and 1980s.
"I think [Hamilton's] intrigued by the difficulties that drivers of our generation, my generation had to contend with which were fundamentally of a much greater sense of physical danger."
On some of the criticism that comes at Hamilton from some quarters, Watson responded that the the 32 year old is a private character and that "at the end of the day, if that guy's delivering for me, winning races, winning world championships, I don't care."
Watson also discussed the way that the sport has got younger and younger in terms of drivers' ages on entry to the sport.
One of those is Red Bull's emerging teenage talent Max Verstappen and Watson predicts that with an improved car and more maturity, he is the "biggest threat" to Hamilton and Vettel for future world titles.
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