Max Verstappen: F1’s record-breaking world champion

Even though he retained his Formula 1 drivers’ championship with victory at the rain-affected Japanese Grand Prix on 9 October, Max Verstappen has not shown any signs of slowing down in the remaining races of the 2022 season. In fact, the Red Bull star has kept his foot to the pedal, roaring to victory at last week’s grand prix in the US and yesterday’s race in Mexico City.

Verstappen’s win at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez was “another dominant display”, said Giles Richards in The Guardian. Finishing 15 seconds ahead of Mercedes’s Lewis Hamilton, the Dutchman looked “untroubled” and “unruffled” as he climbed out of his car. He might have just enjoyed “a Sunday afternoon jaunt to the seaside”.

‘Never really interested in stats’

In taking the chequered flag in Mexico, the two-time world champion has now won 14 of the 20 races so far in 2022 – and in the process surpassed the record for most wins by one driver in a single F1 season.

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In 2004 Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher won 13 from 18 races and in 2013 Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel won 13 from 19. Following his win in Mexico, Verstappen now has a better win percentage (70%) than Vettel had in 2013 (68%), said Guinness World Records. And if he wins the remaining two races of the season, in Brazil on 13 November and Abu Dhabi a week later, he will also beat Schumacher’s 72% win percentage.

Speaking after the race, Verstappen revealed that he was not interested in statistics. But he knows “enough about them to understand the magnitude of what he achieved” yesterday in Mexico, said Andrew Benson on BBC Sport.

“It is just an incredible season for the team,” Verstappen told reporters. “I never thought I’d be able to win 14 races in a year. I was never really interested in stats. I just live in the moment.”

As well as beating Schumacher and Vettel’s race win total, he also now has the record for the most points in a season. Hamilton scored 413 points in 2019, but Verstappen now has 416. And with two grands prix still to come the 25-year-old could further extend his record totals.

‘Unstoppable missile’

Amid Verstappen’s “superiority” this year, it’s “easy to forget” the “disastrous” start to his title defence, said Lewis Larkam on Crash.net. Having retired twice in the opening three rounds of the season, due to Red Bull’s “early reliability issues”, Verstappen was 46 points behind in the championship standings. However, his response after the DNF in Australia was “phenomenal”, as he went on to win the following three races.

Described as the “unstoppable missile of the year” by Jonathan McEvoy in the Daily Mail, Verstappen’s victory in Austin on 23 October also handed Red Bull the 2022 constructors’ championship. It was “a tonic” after a week in which the team suffered consid­erable controversy for breaching the sport’s cost-cap. Victory in the US also paid the perfect tribute to Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz, who died aged 78 on the eve of the race.

Having won his first title on the final lap of last season, Verstappen is in “new territory” as 2022 comes to a close, said Oliver Harden on Planet F1. He has faced that “age-old challenge” of maintaining his standards “even though his work for the year is already done”. Right now, “Max has his foot on the rest of Formula 1’s throat” – and he has “no intention of lifting off”.