2022 F1 driver rankings #1: Max Verstappen

2022 F1 driver rankings

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Max Verstappen entered a Formula 1 season as the reigning world champion for the first time this year, with the number one on his car and a target on his back.

While he was entirely blameless for the contentious manner in which he sealed the previous year’s title, he nonetheless faced claims from some fans that he hadn’t deserved his 2021 title. Not to mention a grid full of rivals gunning to be the one to take it from him.

But by the time the sun had set on the 2022 season, Verstappen had doubled his number of championships and taken more than double the wins of the rest of the field combined. There was no debate, no question and no doubt – Max Verstappen was more than deserving of the world championship in 2022 and comfortably the best driver in Formula 1 this season.

Two DNFs in the first three races were frustrating
The start of the championship would ultimately prove the most challenging part of Verstappen’s season, and it was entirely for reasons out of his control. Following a season battling Mercedes in 2021, Verstappen’s supremacy was challenged not by a silver car but a red one – the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, who stormed to the first pole position of the season.

In the race, Verstappen engaged in a thrilling head-to-head duel with Leclerc, the pair exchanging the lead multiple times, but the Red Bull was unable to stay ahead when it got in front. Verstappen chased the Ferrari almost the whole race until, with a handful of laps left, he suddenly slowed, his fuel pump failing. He was forced to leave the opening weekend without a point while Leclerc drew first blood with a maximum haul of 26.

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Luckily, Verstappen had less than seven days until he could bounce back in Jeddah. But he struggled with his tyres in qualifying and could only managed fourth on the grid as team mate Sergio Perez took pole. After picking off Carlos Sainz Jnr at the start, Verstappen ran behind Leclerc for the second consecutive race before a convenient Safety Car turned their duel for second into a fight for the lead. Verstappen eventually prevailed in this multi-lap battle, leading Leclerc home to secure his first victory of the season.

Verstappen was never headed after Spain
Leclerc had the edge again in Melbourne, with Verstappen unable to offer a serious challenge to the Ferrari driver in the race. Then a second fuel system problem in three races forced him out of the race again, with Verstappen only able to watch on as Leclerc cruised to an easy win and 46-point lead over the reigning champion. However, that would be the furthest ahead Leclerc would ever get of Verstappen.

There was no place better than Imola for Verstappen to reassert his authority. He secured his first pole of the year in the wet even while backing off under a yellow flag. Although he lost the lead of the sprint race to Leclerc off the line, Verstappen chased down and passed the Ferrari to secure pole for the grand prix. The next day, he would secure a grand slam victory and a one-two for Red Bull in front of the Tifosi to take a 19 point chunk out of Leclerc’s lead.

In Miami, he lost out on pole to the two Ferraris but slipped past Sainz before turn one and then overtook Leclerc in the early laps. Despite pressure from Leclerc, Verstappen had more than enough nerve to hold onto the lead and take his third win from five rounds – victory in every race he’d finished. Win number four followed in Barcelona, but only after a rare mistake had seen him fall off the circuit in the early laps. Although some felt he’d been gifted the lead from Perez through team orders, the truth was that Verstappen was clearly the faster Red Bull on the day.

But in Monaco, that was not the case. Verstappen was frustrated to only qualify fourth – and was suspicious of his team mate’s Q3 spin that had secured his position – but in the race there was little he could do about his third place once the leaders had all switched to slick tyres and he had to be content with his team mate taking the victory for Red Bull for a change. However, win number five would follow in Baku when both Ferraris self-destructed early, leaving Verstappen to show Perez who was truly boss at Red Bull by cruising to win by more than 20 seconds.

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By now, Verstappen was in the lead of the championship. He extended his advantage in Montreal by taking pole in a wet qualifying session and then leading the majority of the race, resisting late pressure from Sainz to claim win number six. He could have taken back-to-back poles in the wet at Silverstone, but a mistake from Leclerc on their final flying laps put paid to that. In the race, he inherited the lead when Sainz ran wide at Chapel, but stuck bad luck when he ran over debris from a collision between the AlphaTauris, which compromised his pace for the rest of the race and saw him finish in seventh.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull, Spa-Francorchamps, 2022
Verstappen was simply in a different league at Spa
Over the sprint weekend at the Red Bull Ring, Verstappen’s set up appeared to have worked wonders as his took pole on Friday and won the sprint race on Saturday. But on Sunday, Ferrari were simply quicker. He had no answer to Leclerc who passed him three times over the course of the race, and should have been beaten by Sainz, but was saved by yet another Ferrari failure in the closing laps. Paul Ricard was shaping up to be another intense fight with Leclerc, except all challenge for Verstappen evaporated when the Ferrari driver threw away his chance of victory into the tyre barriers, allowing him to win at a canter and further extend his rapidly growing championship advantage.

The two rounds either side of the summer break not only solidified the championship as being all-but-over, they were also Verstappen’s two most crushing performances of the season. After a power unit problem in Q3 at the Hungaroring left him rooted down in tenth place on the grid, Verstappen scythed through the field and picked up the lead in the pit cycle, winning by almost eight seconds despite a quick spin along the way.

But by far his most emphatic victory came at Spa. With Red Bull unable to put off the inevitable any longer, they took a power unit penalty that would see Verstappen sent to the ‘back of the grid’ wherever he qualified. Naturally, he stuck the car on ‘pole’, which converted to 14th on the grid. But in the race, Verstappen looked as if he was in a different formula to the rest of the field. Such was his superior pace, he rose from 14th to take the lead just 14 laps into the race. He took the chequered flag 30 laps later, 18 seconds ahead of his team mate, despite starting 12 places behind Perez on the grid. It was the most dominant victory of Verstappen’s career.

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By now, the championship was virtually his. He thrilled his fanatical home crowd by taking pole at Zandvoort, then beating both Mercedes on his way to win number ten. Then his 11th followed at Monza, where he overcame a five-place power unit grid penalty to easily win once more. Singapore should have been his fifth pole of the season, but a fuel mix-up in qualifying forced Red Bull to abandon his would-be pole lap before he could complete it. In a wet race, he was abnormally off-form, losing multiple places at the start and even locking up into an escape road on the way to a modest seventh place finish.

A tally of 15 wins set an all-time record
In a disrupted wet race in Suzuka, Verstappen was untouchable once more. After taking pole, he briefly looked under pressure from Leclerc at the start before sweeping by into the lead at the first corner. Once again, he controlled the race out front to win by almost half a minute in the rain-shortened race. After a post-race penalty for Leclerc – and a great deal of confusion – it was determined that Verstappen’s lead in the championship was now unassailable. He was world champion for a second successive season.

Taking the title did little to encourage Verstappen to ease his foot off the accelerator. He equalled Sebastian Vettel and Michael Schumacher’s all-time record for wins in a season with his 13th victory in Austin, chasing down Hamilton in a race that felt as though it could have taken place one year prior. Then in Mexico, he broke new ground by securing win number 14 – again ahead of Hamilton.

There would be no victory in Brazil after Red Bull followed a dead end on their set up on Friday, leaving him vulnerable in the sprint race. Verstappen lost out to George Russell, Sainz and Hamilton to qualify fourth, which became third after Sainz’s penalty. In the grand prix, he clashed with Hamilton early – further turning back the clock – and had to battle through the field. He was eventually allowed to pass Perez to attack Alonso in the closing laps, then contentiously refused to return the position to his team mate at the finish.

But as he had at every point in 2022, he followed disappointment up with a win in the final round of the season. He took his seventh pole of the year – still fewer than Leclerc’s total – and never looked in any danger of losing the lead in the race. When he crossed the line to a shower of sparks, the pyrotechnics hailed not just the end of the season but also the end of one of the most dominant and relentless championship campaigns the sport had ever seen a driver produce.

Verstappen’s triumphant 2021 season may have made him a world champion, but 2022 firmly established him as the undisputed driver at the top of his sport. The final boss of Formula 1. In a record-breaking year where he had been so exceptional, there’s every chance this season could prove the pinnacle of Verstappen’s F1 career. But even if the competition for the championship is much more intense in 2023, it will still require nothing short of brilliance for anyone to dethrone him.

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Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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49 comments on “2022 F1 driver rankings #1: Max Verstappen”

  1. Whatever your thoughts on him, Max was imperious this year.

    1. Whatever your thoughts on him, Max was imperious this year

      The car was imperious.
      If Ferrari hadn’t made a major effort to do things wrong on a regular basis, Verstappen would have been a reasonable bet for 2nd in the WDC.

      In the rankings here, swap #1 and #2 drivers.
      Lando did a very good job with a car best described as a bit of a prima donna – if the driver reacted to it at just the right time in just the right way it gave a decent result, otherwise it was nowhere, as Daniel discovered.

      1. The car was very good, but it wasn’t even as dominant as Lewis’s Mercs for instance. If some top driver other than Verstappen was in that car they’d probably have still won the title, but not even close to winning 15 races.

        1. Yes, right assessment, take hamilton for example, no doubt he’d have won the title, as long as the team mate was perez ofc, and also pretty sure leclerc, russell and norris (while norris still hasn’t been at a top car, so a question mark remains) would have won the title no problem, but 15 race wins would’ve been a tough ask from anyone.

        2. Can we all agree to disagree. The car was mega but Verstappen was as well.

          1. The car was SP mega, lol

      2. if the car was imperious, why wasn’t Perez easily second in the WDC? In the Merc days, when the car really was imperious, whoever drove the second car could easily finish second in the championship, even with lots of DNFs.

        My take is that the car was good enough to win, but only in the hands of Max. With Perez and say… Gasly, this title wasn’t gonna happen for RBR and Leclerc would have finished 1st.

    2. He had the car that gave him much space to cruise to victory. Everybody looks good in a rocket-ship!

  2. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to describe this as one of the finest season performances in Formula 1 history. It was one of those occasions where one driver dominates a season despite not really having a dominant car. Similar to Lewis Hamilton in 2018, Michael Schumacher in 2001 and 1995, Alain Prost in 1985, Jackie Stewart in 1969, Jim Clark in 1965 and Juan Manuel Fangio in 1957.

    He made extremely few errors, with Singapore the only significant one, and had only one weekend where he was outperformed by his teammate, in Monaco (and we later discovered that Perez might have crashed deliberately in qualifying to start ahead of him). His best weekends, in Spa and Suzuka, were extraordinary, and he was consistently on it all season to win 15 races. A truly fantastic season performances from the latest driver to join the list of ‘elites’ from Formula 1 history.

    1. singapore even wasn’t significant at all. he didn’t crash into the wall or another car. he didn’t lose a win in direct fight with his championship rival. his team’s error in singapore was a lot more significant.

      1. It was bound to snowball and it snowballed perfectly.

        He was almost a second up on everyone in Singapore and the team killed both his laps.

        Frankly it was good that he didn’t start in the front. He would have won by a minute given his pace relative to Perez. At least we got to see Leclerc and Perez fight it out till the very end.

        1. He could’ve easily lost it to Leclerc as well, who surely had the pace to win, had he kept the lead after T1. If Verstappen started from pole and got beaten from there, because of the lower grip on the right(at least that what they said), Charles could’ve won it, barely Max would’ve passed him on track. We’ll never know, but anyway, for sure it was a lot more entertaining race with him starting it from behind twice. Otherwise it wouldn’t have been anything to watch at that day.
          He could’ve won both at Silverstone and in Singapore that year with a bit less bad luck, 17 races in total, which is kinda frightening, if you think about that. and many out there truly believe he wasn’t even close to his best that year.
          “If you think what you see this year was his best, wait until you see next year”. Ha, ha

          1. That’s a very good observation.

            In any case, Verstappen has been guaranteed to win almost everytime he has a car that can match his opposition. That in itself is fairly scary if you ask me.

          2. Fun you talk about bad luck for verstappen, considering the races he wouldn’t have won if not for ferrari’s bad strategies or unreliability (verstappen had reliability issues from 2nd); yes, silverstone should’ve been a verstappen win, but spain should’ve been leclerc’s, baku an interesting battle etc.

          3. @esploratore1,
            engines blow up normally not because of the bad luck, but rather because of inherent design flaw.
            yes, you are completely right, he could’ve won a lot less for sure this year. His car wasn’t as dominant as the final numbers suggest. But Silverstone and Singapore were for sure examples of bad luck, not his flaws as a driver, not reliability affected DNFs(which is not exactly bad luck). and as I said, he could’ve won both those races. All in all, the luck or bad luck of Charles/Ferrari and Max/RB more or less evened itself this year. The number of races Max won matched the level he drove at this year. I just thought it is quite frightening even to think about, but the total number of his wins this year could’ve been easily as high as 17. By no means, this was one of the luckiest season for a driver.

      2. Well, he lost points with that mistake, not sure how you can say it was not bad, it was as bad as hamilton in baku 2021, just less costing because of not being in contention for a win before it.

        1. Doubt points were on his mind during that point of the season. He was going for that winning streak record – I’m 100% certain he was. And keeping the hopes for achieving that record meant clearing Norris immediately after the restart. It didn’t work and that’s it.

          1. @xenomorph91, exactly, well said

    2. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to describe this as one of the finest season performances in Formula 1 history.

      Fair enough but my vote for best season ever as

      one of those occasions where one driver dominates a season despite not really having a dominant car.

      goes to… Jochen Rindt

  3. I think there is still more to come from him: spins in Silverstone and Hungary, the frustrated attack to Lando in Singapore’s restart, the awful lap at Jeddah Q3… there is room for improvement. If he steps up on his game for the next season, then we are going to see History being written. Let’s hope for it.

    1. Exactly!

      He was better in 2021 than 2022 in my opinion.

      Lot more pressure, and he never had bad race-days that cost him points.

      First or Second in every race he finished except for Hungary where we know what happened.

      1. Agree with this, I was more impressed by him in 2021 than 2022, while I still think 1st place is right this year.

    2. What was ‘frustrated’ about his attack on Lando at restart, I wonder? Restarts do normally present the better opportunities to overtake. He had the advantage on the straight coming into the corner. It wasn’t anything like super late, reckless divebomb or something, watch the replay again. Unfortunately these modern cars have way too stiff suspension and are way too vulnerable on the bumps. I enjoyed the fact he went for a move, he was actually the only driver on track that day who actually passed other cars all day.
      The championship was already over, he had all the right to go for it and race, taking few extra risks.

    3. The spin must’ve been in spain, silverstone he was unlucky with some debris causing a puncture.

  4. Spot-on ranking for #1.

  5. Unpopular opinion:Max’s performance in 2019, 2020 and 2021 were better than his performance in 2022. He had some bad weekends and mistakes which people tend to forget. In Jeddah he got ahead of his teammate because of a safety car. In Spain he went into the gravel by himself and used team orders to get past Perez. In Monaco he was a bit anonymous while his teammate won the race. In Hungary he spun in the race. In Brazil he got into a needless incident with Lewis. In Singapore he was unlucky in quali but had a really crappy race.

    1. All that is true but you are focusing on the handful of negative aspects. Big picture, he was majestic … I agree with you that his performance in 2021 is more remarkable because he fought from beginning to end with a 7-time world champion. 2022 was a season without opposition …

      1. I think Max was near perfect in 2019, 2020 and 2021. In 2022 his performance relative to his teammate was weaker but the car masks this. And some of his mistakes didn’t came to bite him. Still it was a great season by him. But his standards were very high in the previous seasons and it’s a shame people think the better your car is the better you are. So Perez improved even more in 2022 right?

        1. Qualifying pace wise, Perez is still 0.5% off Max, which is the same as last year.

          Race pace wise, Perez is closer but that’s mostly down to the car. He would usually qualify out of position in 2021, sometimes not even making Q2, think Zandvoort, and then run his own race wasting time behind slower cars.

          This year the car advantage puts Perez in a much better position to drive more in clean air and maintain better pace, not to mention that these new cars allow you to follow closely and makes it easy to overtake.

          I would in fact argue the old regulations + Perez being absolutely terrible made the gap between Max and him look much bigger. These regulations are a more fairer indication, and the gaps are still significant, almost 3 to 4 tenths per lap on race pace.

          And even then there’s some case to be made that Max was barely managing his pace most races this year unlike last year where he was pushing till the very end.

          1. I disagree. Drivers don’t suddenly improve and decline. Perez only had 190 points in 2021 with 5 podiums. This year he had 11 podiums and 305 points. His improvement is much bigger than Max’s improvement. From 395.5 points to 454 points. Qualifying pace overall was definitely under 0.4% this year between Max and Perez.

    2. For me his best performance ever is still Brazil 2016 in the wet

      1. I was really impressed by his speed at spa, I would’ve liked to see really difficult circumstances (say a puncture at lap 1 sending him 1 min behind the pack) to see if he’d still win, so fast he was, obviously without SC, that made it way too easy.

    3. A race has multiple stints. In Jeddah he got ahead of Sainz, already did his part there. A safety car and the likes was always bound to happen in Jeddah and if Perez was the faster driver he would have shown that in the second stint where he went missing.

      In Spain he was anyways the quicker driver as Will notes. Team Orders helped for sure but I doubt it changes the end result in anyways. But yes, his gravel trip was a mistake, just as his spin in Hungary was.

      In Monaco you do have a good point — his teammate was ahead of him in almost all sessions except in Q3 last lap where his crash leaves quite a bit of suspicion. It wouldn’t have mattered in any case as Alonso also had a moment which would have forced him to abandon his lap where he was improving relative to both Sainz and Perez.

      In Brazil, as shown in the sprint, the RB simply had no pace to win. That was his chance to keep ahead of the best car that weekend. In fact, it was at least interesting to see a driver try to do better than his car would usually allow instead of not bothering to attack or defend and just bring it home.

      And in Singapore, things snowballed. They happen. The championship was done and I would at least categorize it as he had nothing to lose. Spain and Hungary were more significant error and if not for his sheer pace, Hungary goes to his title rival another year and he ends up P2 at best in Spain.

      I agree with you that 2022 was not at the same level as 2021. I would say 2021 was one of the all time great performances from a driver given how consistently on pace he was the entire year.

      1. In Monaco Q3 Max was faster than Perez for sure on his final best run. He had to abort that, but even his theoretical best was faster than theoretical best of Perez.
        In Monaco Max was [potentially] faster all race, but he was sitting behind slower cars all day. The fact he was a lot faster was evident on those few fast laps he had run in clean air, his in- and out-laps, where he was miles faster than all, including both Ferrari drivers, let alone Checo. To say Perez was simply faster in Monaco and beat him because of that would be false.

        1. Max’s in and out laps gain him so much time usually. One of his less spoken aspects. Not everyone can shave of seconds in an undercut like he does.

          Be it France last year, or Hungary this year (twice!!) or even France this year where he had effectively undercut Leclerc, which coincidentally was the moment Leclerc spun off after a purple minisector.

          In Monaco it was all about qualifying. My point was from a qualifying POV and I do believe we can give the benefit of doubt to Perez that weekend. I didn’t expect Ferrari’s comedy show in Monaco with a front row. But they entertained us as usual.

          1. @Robert Henning,
            yes, fully agree, there are numerous traits and features of Max skillset, that most casual fans seem to keep unnoticed, or underappreciated at very least. His immediate feel of the grip and the car on the limit, which allows him to produce the best of any outlaps in particular, and also allows him to be the fastest by margin from the get-go on Friday FP1, on first laps, particularly in wet conditions, with lots of unknowns, has been undoubtably one of those skills. Those skills, amongst several others combined represent what I call race craft. and speaking on that, I would put Verstappen on top of the tops without hesitation. Only Alonso is close in terms of overall race craft, arguably even better is some components. Lots of casual fans though, judge drivers merely on the qualifying performances and scores(against their teammates) and put way too much weight on this ability to put clean laps together on light car and new tyres when it matters.

    4. In Jeddah he got ahead of his teammate because of a safety car.

      And then he managed to battle Charles for the win, a very close win, meanwhile his teammate couldn’t even get close to Sainz in third place.

      In Spain he went into the gravel by himself and used team orders to get past Perez.

      A mistake made by another driver in the same place. His DRS was not working and that’s what made impossible for him to first overtake Russell. He made his strategy work and was way faster than Perez.

      In Monaco he was a bit anonymous while his teammate won the race.

      Perez beat him in quali by only 0.03 and then Max could not have done anything to change his race since the lead driver gets to stop first. In the end of the race Perez was struggling with his tyres while the top 4 were all together.

      In Hungary he spun in the race.

      He started from freaking P10! In Hungary. And you are worried about a spin while he was managing a clutch slip issue.

      In Brazil he got into a needless incident with Lewis.

      His only incident in the whole season!! 22 races!! That’s insane standards, really.

      In Singapore he was unlucky in quali but had a really crappy race.

      He knew his race was done by saturday. If he didn’t try that move on Lando he would finish the race behind him, since DRS was not available. He went for a podium and it did not work out. Nothing wrong with that with a race he could not do much since he had a bad start.

      His 2019 was not better than this. In 2020 Max was amazing, but we had nothing to compare his performances to. I do think to keep up the level of a hectic season like the 2021 Max showed something special. 2022 is up there with that.

    5. Context is everything…

      Jeddah, Perez only lead the race for 14 laps, he did not have the pace to keep up with the rest, fell behind Sainz while Verstappen got ahead of Leclerc
      Spain, Perez was told not to hold up Verstappen…which is quite difference from ‘team orders’, Perez did not give up anyhting
      Monaco, Perez caused a red flag was Max lap was good for P2 on the grid..Monaco
      Hungary, again a superior performance, they all made mistakes, but Max made up for it the best
      Singapore, again ruined in quali…Max locked up in the race…one small mistake all season long

      as for Brasil, it was always Lewis choice to put his car in Max path while he was 85% along side, the oddest decision by stewards in a long period of time, but it dod not matter.

  6. Jonathan Parkin
    23rd December 2022, 14:52

    God above that Spa trophy is awful!

  7. I think Max was near perfect in 2019, 2020 and 2021. In 2022 his performance relative to his teammate was weaker but the car masks this. And some of his mistakes didn’t came to bite him. Still it was a great season by him. But his standards were very high in the previous seasons and it’s a shame people think the better your car is the better you are. So Perez improved even more in 2022 right?

  8. It’s interesting how the effects of a mistake can colour one’s perception. Verstappen lost the car in Spain and Hungary, and had scruffy races in Singapore and Brazil. But none of that mattered as the first two didn’t cost him any points (party thanks to some early-season team orders), and the latter two were at a stage in the season where it was irrelevant. Compare to Leclerc, whose mistake in France was unfortunately an instant DNF and which is still held against him as some big turning point in the season.

    Some of the races Verstappen had make this ranking fair enough, but I’d agree with others that this was not even close to his best season as a driver.

    1. The truth is he didn’t lost a car in Spain and Hungary. He had moments but ‘caught’ his car brilliantly on both occasion. He didn’t stuck in the ground, he didn’t put it in the wall. But yeah, I get it’s kinda comforting for some people to think his ‘mistakes’ in Spain and Hungary are somewhat equal or similar those of Leclerc or Hamilton, who put their cars into the wall.

      1. While I don’t make discounts on mistakes and I feel leclerc and verstappen were pretty equal in those this year, it’s true that verstappen has an incredible car control, can be seen as far back as brazil 2016, where he spun 360 degrees in full wet conditions and didn’t lose the position to rosberg, in hungary this year ofc; spain actually had consequences (as well as singapore), he was stuck behind russell, who didn’t have a car as fast as the red bull and if not for leclerc’s mechanical problem would’ve meant losing any chance to win because of the mistake.

        1. He didn’t spun 360 in Brazil 2016, that’s the thing. It was less than 90 degrees, quarter spin so to say. Same way he never spun in Spain this year, he wasn’t even sideways, lol, 30 degreed at most. He caught the rear and went off the track because of the time he spent doing that, but never spun like Sainz in the same place, or Leclerc in France and Imola, losing the car completely and putting in the barriers – all like real spins.
          The only 360 spin of Max’ in race conditions during this season was in Hungary, and even then, it was controlled 360 spin, same as his 360 spin at the start of Q3 at Silverstone. As soon as he understood he had no chance to catch the car and correct in time, he throttled it harder to finish the full 360 spin on purpose and put the car in the right direction. Some people even believe he was just lucky to find out his nose faces the right direction, no, it had nothing to do with luck, it was fully controllable spin.
          Yes, his car control is one of his most standout skills.

        2. @esploratore1, if not Leclerc’s DNF, Max had not chance to win in Spain irrespective of his mistake, such was Ferrari advantage in pace and tyre management. In fact even Mercedes in Lewis hands had better tyre deg and race pace that day, even if both their cars(Russell more so than Lewis) were compromised by engine overheating issue, and had to lift and coast for most of the race. Prior to Max mistake, Charles started to open up gap by 0,3s- 0,4s per lap, very similar to their qualy pace advantage, same as in Bahrain and Australia prior to Spain. This is where Max mistake likely came from, he had to push fully not leaving any margins.

  9. I said a few years back that Max deserved to be a WDC and I am delighted that he has taken that well deserved accolade.

    Now I want to see someone take the fight to him :)

  10. Without doubt the supreme performance of the year ,I am not a fan , but have never doubted his enormous talent from the first time he drove an F1 car, this year he seemed to have curbed his more aggressive side and was able to rely on his undoubted excellent car control and a more relaxed racing brain. So in my own little world I came to give him the admiration his performances deserved . But then he reverted to type and treated his teammate with the contempt I suppose he believes a mere Human deserves, Obviously he and his fan club wouldn’t give a dam what I think , but a shame anyway.

  11. Accurate. But let’s not forget that he still remains a detestable human being.

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