Max Verstappen signed off his 2022 campaign with a record 15th win at 22 Grands Prix.
Verstappen equaled Vettel’s all-time record with his 13th victory at the United States Grand Prix last month, adding two more wins to his remaining races.
If he sweeps all three, Verstappen will surpass Vettel’s feat of winning 68.4% of Grands Prix. After Vettel’s 2013 victory, however, he won the top title.
Both are short of the record held by Alberto Ascari, but he won six of the eight points in 1952 and won 75%. To beat that, a driver must win 18 out of 24 races next year.
Verstappen took pole position and won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix for the third year in a row. Between 2014 and 2019, Mercedes took six consecutive pole positions at this track, but no driver had won before.
It was Verstappen’s 35th career win and his 20th pole position. The latter puts him level with Damon Hill and Valtteri Bottas.
Before the final race, Verstappen had broken the record for most points in a single season. His final victory extended the record of 413 held by Lewis Hamilton in 2019 to 454.
* He didn’t win a championship.
However, Hamilton has already set a record with 22 Grands Prix wins in a single season this year. Verstappen had three races to break this record, scoring 21 out of 24 points.
Charles Leclerc finished second in the points standings, finishing second for Ferrari. That also denied Red Bull a one-two in the drivers’ championship, something they had never done before.
Mercedes drivers finished first and second in the championship from 2014-16 and 2019-20. After the start of the 299th Grand Prix on Sunday, sole Mercedes driver Sebastian Vettel retired from F1.
Vettel went an entire season without a podium for the first time in his career. Last year at Hangarong on the final stage of the season, the car was withdrawn after being disqualified for a technical offence. His last real podium finish was his second place at last year’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
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Leclerc’s second was the ninth appearance on the podium for a Ferrari driver in this race. However, the team did not win at Yas Marina, which joined the F1 calendar in 2009.
The top five drivers in the championship all achieved or equaled their best finishing position. Behind champion Verstappen and Leclerc in third was Sergio Perez, one better than his previous best of fourth in the 2020 Racing Points and Red Bull last year.
Carlos Sainz Jr. repeated his personal best from last year in fifth place. In his first season with Mercedes, George Russell moved up from 15th in points last year to fourth.
That means he finished Hamilton’s season 275 points to 240 in the championship.He is third among Hamilton’s teammates in scoring in a single season. Nico Rosberg did it when he won the 2016 title 385-380, and Jenson Button did it 270-227 in 2011 – Hamilton’s worst season.
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It was not a year to remember for Hamilton. For the first time in his Formula 1 career, he did not win a race or start from pole position. He set two fastest laps at Silverstone and The Hangaring to take his career total to 61, 16 short of record holder Michael Schumacher.
McLaren’s Lando Norris set the fastest lap in Sunday’s race. It was the fifth of his career, as did Russell, as well as Giuseppe Farina, Carlos Pace, Jody Schecter, Didier Pironi, John Watson and Michele Alboreto.
Abu Dhabi hosted the season for the 11th time, equaling the record held by Australia from 1985 to 1995, and the Yas Marina circuit will host the final F1 race in 2023. .
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2022 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
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