Max Verstappen took the title and did so with no less than ten victories spread over the 22 races, in which he was mainly up against Lewis Hamilton. With another equally successful season, Verstappen will pass many big names in Formula 1 on the victory list.
Verstappen on the rise
At the top of the record list is the name of Sir Hamilton. The Mercedes driver has no less than 103 GP-victories behind his name. The Brit overtook the 91 victories of Michael Schumacher. The number of the former Ferrari driver seemed unbreakable, but Hamilton set a new bar.
The eyes are on the relatively young Verstappen who took his first title in 2021 with ten wins, bringing his total to twenty F1 wins. On the list, that gives him a shared sixteenth spot with Mika Hakkinen. Will the Red Bull Racing driver ever match Hamilton's record?
Long way to go for Verstappen
If Verstappen is as successful in 2022 as he was in 2021 and can add another ten or eleven wins to his total (in 2022 there will be one race more), he'll be able to surpass some of the biggest names in F1. With one win, he overtakes Hakkinen and he will be on a par with Kimi Raikkonen. After that it runs up with the following names: Damon Hill, Nico Rosberg, Nelson Piquet, Juan Manuel Fangio, Niki Lauda, Jim Clark and Jackie Stewart.
With ten victories, Verstappen comes in at P8 on the list. With probably a long career ahead of the Dutchman, it is quite conceivable that he will at least penetrate the top five. Ayrton Senna currently guards that mark with 41 wins. Verstappen's win percentage is not that impressive at the moment. Verstappen scores 14.18 percent against Fangio's 47.06 percent; but that's seventy years of difference and seventy years of change in F1 in between.
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I had 22 wins from my first 7 seasons guys, that's miles ahead of Max on 20 man.
Yep. If we divide Lewis’s career into two stints - first seven years and next eight years - we get a very clear view of the difference the Merc has made for him.
First seven years - 22 wins, 54 podiums, 1 championship. A very good seven years, no doubt.
Next eight years - 81 wins, 128 podiums, 6 championships.
What a difference a car makes.
Rosberg is another testament to the power of the Merc in the hybrid era:
First 8 years - 11 podiums, 3 wins, 0 championships
Next 3 years - 45 podiums, 20 wins, one championship.
C’mon.
The reason max has a low win % is mainly due to the dominance of that mercedes team. In fact its really impressive that he managed 20 wins, and 50 podiums with 2 obviously faster cars on the grid.
Generational talent.
Max will need to be careful in his wheel-to-wheel duels with Lewis, and any other drivers at the front of the pack, in the 2022 Formula One season given the penalty points he has on his FIA super licence. He can only accumulate a maximum of 12 points across 12 months before facing action and he enters next season on seven
Verstappen's win percentage is not that impressive at the moment.
Enough said , it is not gonna get any better with the regulation change.
And Lewis his % is maybe gonna come down because of that. On the other hand, I think the victory record of Lewis will probably never be broken. The FIA will never allow another team to be that dominant anymore for so long.
True because there are too much politics.Ferrari did that,then redbull.so as Mercedes.now its only bad in your eyes that Mercedes have been dominant for so long.I watched MS,FA and SV dorminates races for so long before LH came along..
Correct, but I really think (or hope) that the FIA will never allow this anymore. Noone wants a team to dominate like MB did anymore. They for sure realised this the past years, why do you think the 2022 cars with less dirty air are coming? As well as stricter regulations of the car design. Of course we have to wait and see, but I really think if for example one team will dominate the coming 2 years they will change/adjust regulations faster.
After 4 years of Redbull domination, I also thought the same. Then came Merc.
We also had Ferrari and McLaren domination in the past. It's unfortunately been always this way.
Not 7 years straight if I'm correctly. But every dominant period of more than x years is bad for the sport. I would even hate it if Max would win 6 titles with such a dominant car Mercedes had.
But I meant that the FIA will never allow that anymore. They will make rule changes much quicker if such will ever happen I think.
I agree , I also would like to give credit to Lewis, many drivers so had dominate cars in the past F1 years, and lacked the consistency that he has had over the years . Not forgetting beating his teammates in the same machinery.
Mercedes and Lewis that combination is once in generation, never say never thou. I said that Schumachers 7 wc would never be reached and well here we are.
Rubbish, Max proved in 2021 that all Hamilton had going for him to make up for his lack of talent for those 7 WC'S was all about the car.
Lewis title get just way easier than what michael achieved with what he had, as michael said, records are meant to be broken anyways.
Even with 10 title going on, didnt feel magnificent drive that delivered by him.
Something u feel like kimi mclaren drive at early season , that doesnt need title count to prove
I think you have not considered his rookie years and dominance of arguably the most talented F1 driver ,already WC Alonso.
So I understand your opinion that he's never driven a car that wasn’t that good, he always drove a car that could be at least be up there with the greats and win races season in and season out.
The truth is that Schumacher, Senna, Prost, Mansell, Hill, Villeneuve, Rosberg and Button all won with dominant cars, none of them took a Minardi, a Arrows or a Caterham to win the championship…so why would that be a big deal with Hamilton?
Sure, he will probably win his 8th championship with Mercedes because they dominated F1 since 2014.
Heck, even Rosberg managed to win a championship with a Mercedes, but he was not a bad driver at all - for example I think he was much better than Bottas and of a good portion of the field today.
Yet, in 2016 Hamilton managed to win more races than Rosberg.
And how about 2007, his rookie season with Alonso (a 2-times consecutive WDC) as a teammate? He matched him totally, partly outdrove him (such as in Indianapolis) and almost won the championship in his rookie season.
Then came 2018, and he still managed to beat Vettel in a super competitive Ferrari, making less mistakes than him (actually, I can’t remember any).
He may find himself in the greatest F1 car ever assembled, but he always found himself outperforming tough teammates (pretty much all of them future or past World champions).
Before Mercedes Lewis didn't dominate or you mean he was consistent in his performance despite having not the best car during season 3-7?
I never said Lewis is a bad driver, I admit he's very quick and he proofed that throughout his career. VB doesn't have the skills in my opinion. He can be fast sometimes on a clear track, but often he lacks speed and with other cars around him he fails most of the time. He was good enough to secure the WCC and be 2nd in WDC most of the years, that was the whole purpose for him at Mercedes.
Its not easy to keep consistent even with the best machinery, easy or not, its insane how consistently he has dominated. Before Mercedes, in a good car and at Mercedes with a great car.
VB had the skills ,but its like VB said when the benchmark set by Lewis so high its hard for his teammate. Rosberg took a a few seasons to do it, and that was a nail biter season.
Lots of driver's have had dominate cars but lacked the skills or consistency. So its never all about the car , f1 history shows that.
True, Lewis has been consistent. But don't forget that it is much easier to do having such dominant car. If he would have to do that all those years like last year, not sure if anyone can keep that same consistancy.
And Bottas wasn't really brought on board to challenge Lewis, just to help him :)