There is only one race left on the Formula 1 calendar which Max Verstappen hasn’t won following his victory in the Chinese Grand Prix last weekend.
Shanghai’s absence from the schedule for five years due to the Covid-19 outbreak meant Verstappen had only raced there three times for Red Bull prior to last weekend, plus twice for Toro Rosso (now RB). His best result was third in 2017, impressively taken from 16th on the grid. Last weekend he doubled up, taking the sprint race and grand prix.
That leaves Singapore as they only venue where Verstappen is yet to win. His best result there is second in 2018.
This was Verstappen’s 58th career win, all bar five of which have come in the five-year spell from the 2019 Chinese Grand Prix – the 1,000th world championship round – and F1’s return to Shanghai last weekend. During that time Verstappen has won as many grands prix as every other driver combined – or, to put it another way, half of the 106 rounds held.
That has severely curtailed how much winning the others have been able to do. Above all Lewis Hamilton, labouring in an uncompetitive Mercedes for the third year running. Last weekend was the 50th consecutive grand prix he has failed to win. Until the end of 2021 he had never gone more than 10 rounds in a row without taking a win.
The stark difference in Hamilton and Verstappen’s form since their 2021 championship fight means Verstappen is poised to overtake Hamilton’s winning rate. When Verstappen made his debut at the beginning of 2015 Hamilton had won 22.3% of all races he’d started. He reached a personal best of 36.3% and was not far off that level, at 35.8% after his most recent victory at Jeddah in 2021.
Since then Hamilton’s winning rate has been in freefall. Verstappen, meanwhile, broke the record for most wins in a season in 2022 and again last year. While Hamilton’s winning rate has fallen to 30.3%, Verstappen’s stands at 30.5%, and victory at the next round in Miami will put him ahead.
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Even if Verstappen fails to win there, the likelihood remains strong he will overtake Hamilton at some point in the season. While Red Bull dominate, Mercedes have only the fourth or fifth-fastest car. On Sunday Hamilton finished ninth for the third time in four rounds; his previous three ninth-place finishes occured over 94 grands prix.
However Hamilton’s win-less run pales besides that of Nico Hulkenberg, who equalled the record for longest F1 career without ever taking a victory, or indeed even a podium finish.
Verstappen’s monopoly on pole position in 2024 was broken by Lando Norris in the sprint race qualifying session. Norris took pole for the second sprint race in a row, as he did at the last one in Brazil last year, and as in that race he failed to win or even lead a lap.
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However Verstappen kept his run of pole positions in grands prix going. This was his sixth in a row, beating his personal best. It was also his fifth since the season began, the best anyone has managed since Mika Hakkinen in 1999, and two shy of Alain Prost’s 1993 record.
It was the 100th pole position (in a grand prix) for Red Bull. They are the sixth team to reach a century of pole positions, joining Ferrari (whose next will be their 250th), McLaren, Mercedes, Williams and Lotus.
Norris reached the podium again, extending his record for most podium appearances without a win to 15, and taking his best result of the season so far with second place. For the first time this year, neither Ferrari driver finished on the podium.
Verstappen was denied a perfect score last weekend by Fernando Alonso, who nabbed the fastest lap of the race. However his best lap of 1’37.810 was over five-and-a-half seconds off the race lap record set at the inaugural Chinese Grand Prix 20 years ago by Michael Schumacher. In contrast, Verstappen’s pole position time was three-tenths of a second quicker than Rubens Barrichello’s at the same event.
Among those in crowd that day was Zhou Guanyu, who finally got his chance to compete in his home race, two years after becoming an F1 driver. He is the first Chinese driver ever to start the race, though he spent the whole day out of the points places. With team mate Valtteri Bottas retiring, Sauber fell to the bottom of the championship table behind two other teams who are yet to score – Williams and Alpine.
Over to you
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2024 Chinese Grand Prix
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