Max Verstappen won his second F1 world championship in 2022 with overwhelming strength. However, the lack of pole-to-win shows a new trend for the new generation F1 machine.
Max Verstappen set a new record with 15 wins, the most in a season. He had seven pole positions. This is a stat to aim for given the historical trend of the fastest cars winning the most races and pole positions showing the fastest cars.
It wasn’t until following the summer vacation that Max Verstappen had a better car than Charles Leclerc, winning seven out of nine races, but four pole positions during that period. And Verstappen virtually won the title long before he had established his dominance. About half the season we didn’t win with the fastest car.
“We won quite a few races when we weren’t actually the fastest, but when we had good strategy and consistency,” Verstappen said.
“At some point I got the fastest car and it was a little bit easier. I didn’t have to take all the risks all the time.”
Both Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc say it was the 12th round of the Formula 1 French Grand Prix that they were conscious of winning the title for Verstappen. At that point, Red Bull was clearly not better than Ferrari. It is also emphasized that despite Verstappen’s 63-point lead and seven victories, the pole position was won only three times.
Of course, Max Verstappen didn’t win all those races on his own. In Spain and Azerbaijan Ferrari lost due to poor strategy and reliability issues, and Charles Leclerc self-destructed in France. And there was a time in the first half of 2022 when the Red Bull RB18 was more balanced than the Ferrari F1-75.
But in the first half of the season, when his wins and points advantage were most at odds with his car’s reality, Max Verstappen resorted to what he called the ‘beautiful’ side of the new generation F1 car.
Notably it was key to his first victory of the year in Saudi Arabia, but it also helped him to clinch the sprint race win at Imola.
“For most of the season we didn’t have the fastest car in one lap,” Verstappen said.
“These new cars are very interesting because I knew before that it would be very difficult to overtake the cars, so I was really focused on qualifying.”
“Even if qualifying isn’t great, if you have a good race car you can fight and you can actually pass.”
“That’s the beautiful side of the new car. If we had problems with qualifying last year and the problem of being uncompetitive, we wouldn’t have won as many races as we did this year.”
“Pole position was great this year, but it didn’t always mean winning races.
Max Verstappen continued to win other races with this benefit.
In the F1 Hungarian Grand Prix, it was a development that might never be judged whether Ferrari abandoned the victory or was overwhelmed, but Verstappen won from the 10th grid. It would have been difficult with past machines.
Won from 14th on the grid at the F1 Belgian GP. While this was his and his car’s dominance at Spa, these features almost certainly helped in Italy and the US as well.
“Some of his drives were out of this world and he deserves a lot of recognition and credit for what he has done this year,” said Red Bull F1 team principal Christian Horner.
“He’s stood out this year. Of course, it always ends up being a contribution to the team, but I think he pulled out all the performance.”
“We didn’t always have the biggest smiles on Saturday, but I think we had a very good race car this year and he made the most of it.”
“Considering the number of times this regulation change has made it incredibly difficult to actually beat the DRS, there have been so many occasions where he had to be absolutely perfect.”
“He’s Incredible”
Max Verstappen won his second F1 world championship with the most wins and points of the year. And the numbers may show what Verstappen has in store for more than just the car’s advantage.
Category: F1 / Max Verstappen / red bull
