Verstappen can pass very big historical names in 2022
F1 News
- GPblog.com
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.