Everyone has known it for some time, but now it's official: Max Verstappen is the world champion 2022! For the second consecutive year, the Dutchman manages to establish himself with his Red Bull and he does so with no less than four races left in the season. The opponent has changed (Ferrari and Leclerc have taken over from Mercedes and Hamilton) but the result for Max has remained the same and 2022 has been even more dominant than him. Let's go relive it.
A complicated start
The world champion's season starts badly, with one win and two retirements in the first three races. In the inaugural round in Bahrain, after having qualified second behind Leclerc, the Dutchman was betrayed by the reliability of his new RB18 a few laps from the end.
A Jeddah, after qualifying only fourth on the grid, Verstappen manages to win ahead of the Monegasque. TO Melbourne, however, had to surrender to another mechanical problem and slipped to sixth position in the drivers' championship.
Three out of three
In the following three races, however, the number 1's fortunes improved, also thanks to favorable circumstances. Imola it is the turning point of the season. In the house of Ferrari, Max takes full loot with pole and victory in the sprint race and Sunday race.
In the same weekend, Leclerc struggles and finishes only sixth after an error: the 46-point gap narrows to 27. Miami Leclerc fails to defend pole and Verstappen takes another victory thanks to the speed on the straight of his Red Bull. On the weekend following Barcelona the world overtaking takes place.
Leclerc gets pole again and tries to escape while Max struggles and is passed by Perez and Russell after going off the track. Then everything changes. The engine of the F1-75 number 16 betrays the Monegasque and Verstappen takes another success to lead the world championship: 110 points to 104.
I stretch it
After a third place that tastes like victory a Montecarlo (Leclerc finishes fourth on a track where he should have dominated), Verstappen wins again a Baku and Canada. The reigning world champion thus extends to 49 points over Leclerc, who has slipped to third in the drivers' standings.
The next two races are complicated but Verstappen can still see the positive side. TO Silverstone a slow puncture prevents him from fighting for the victory, relegating him to a poor seventh place finish. However, his rival Leclerc, after leading the race for most of the time, only finished fourth due to a wrong strategic choice by the Ferrari pitman, gaining only six points over the Dutchman.
In Austria, in his Red Bull home, Verstappen took pole and won the sprint race but in the race he was held back by the high degradation of his tires and finished second behind Leclerc. The points earned by the Monegasque are again six, but the result for the Dutchman is still positive, thanks to the victory on Saturday.
Five in a row
After two victories in a row, Ferrari can take advantage of two more races theoretically in their favor and make four out of four in the month of July. In FrenchHowever, Leclerc goes into the block after leading throughout the race. And at the next appointment in Hungary bad luck and strategy prevent Red from winning again.
Verstappen still takes advantage of this, closing the first part of the season with two more successes. Back from the summer break, the number 1 continues his moment of form by dominating a Spa-Francorchamps and also winning in Netherlands and Monza. The gap to Leclerc now exceeds 100 points and Max sees the second laurel ever closer.
World seal
After the hardest race of the year a Singapore, concluded with a poor seventh place after the eighth time in qualifying, we arrive in Japan. Max can already close the championship accounts if he gets 6 more points than his partner Perez and 8 more than Leclerc.
On Saturday the Dutchman took pole ahead of Leclerc and on Sunday the race was held in torrential rain. At the end of the race, Max is crowned World Champion after Leclerc was penalized by five seconds for cutting the final chicane, dropping from second to third.
