Max Verstappen

A season-long duel

Wins in France, Styria and Austria made him the first driver to win on three consecutive weekends, and Austria brought his first grand slam, the youngest anyone had scored one.¹ The fight with Lewis Hamilton turned physical twice. A crash at Silverstone registered a 51 g impact, and the two collided again at Monza, ending both of their races.¹¹²

He also took the half points at a Belgian Grand Prix stopped after three laps.¹

The last lap in Abu Dhabi

They arrived at the final round level on 369.5 points.¹ Hamilton led until a late safety car, and race director Michael Masi's handling of the restart put the two together for one last lap. Verstappen passed at turn five to take the race and the title.¹

Mercedes protested and the stewards dismissed the protests. The team did not appeal.¹ He finished on 395.5 points to Hamilton's 387.5, the first Dutch world champion.¹⁶

From 46 points behind

Fuel-related retirements in Bahrain and Australia left him 46 points behind Charles Leclerc after three races.¹ No champion had ever overturned a deficit that large.¹ He won 14 of the next 19 Grands Prix.³

Clinched at Suzuka

He won a shortened Japanese Grand Prix from pole with four races still to run, 113 points ahead.¹ He finished the year with a record 15 wins and 454 points, beating Hamilton's 413 from 2019.¹

Ten in a row

He won in Miami from ninth on the grid.¹ His win at Monza was his tenth straight, breaking Sebastian Vettel's record of nine, and it was also Red Bull's 15th in a row, past the 11 McLaren set in 1988.¹ The run ended in Singapore, where both Red Bulls went out in the second part of qualifying.¹

Clinched in a sprint

Second place behind Oscar Piastri in the Qatar sprint settled the title, and he won the Grand Prix from pole the next day.¹ He lost only three Grands Prix all year, and his 575 points were more than double the total of his teammate, Sergio Pérez.¹⁴⁸

Seven wins, then ten without

He won seven of the first ten rounds, with a brake fire in Australia his only retirement.¹⁵ Then the wins stopped. From Austria to Mexico he went ten rounds without one, and 20 seconds of penalties in a fight with Lando Norris in Mexico City dropped him to sixth.¹⁵

Rain in São Paulo

He won in the wet from 17th on the grid in São Paulo, a drive the journalist Giles Richards ranked among the great wet-weather performances.¹ Fifth in Las Vegas, ahead of Norris, sealed the title with two races left.¹⁵ He was the first driver since Nelson Piquet in 1983 to win the title with the team placed third in the constructors' standings.¹