How statistics lean towards a Verstappen F1 title after three races - but only just

Worry not, Formula 1 fans: the fourth round of the championship is only just over a week away. The break between Australia and Azerbaijan has been extensive, to the point where F1 writers are desperately hoping for something to inspire them to waggle their pens about.

It might be easier if the championship battle didn’t look quite so cut-and-dried at this juncture; Max Verstappen sits atop the pecking order with a rather nice 69 points, 15 points clear of his team-mate Sergio Perez. Perhaps the current runner-up can offer Verstappen a proper fight in this year’s competition but, to a cynic’s mind, he may not quite have the legs to give the reigning champion enough of a challenge. Even if he does, Red Bull oversees the strings, and his aspirations will go as far as a team orders call.

PLUS: Why Red Bull’s biggest F1 adversary is now itself

But it can still happen. There are other parties out there, all who could theoretically enact a turnaround in fortunes over the remaining 20 races. Consider it F1’s version of Schrödinger’s cat: championship hopes are both alive and dead until the results start to follow, and there are multiple examples in F1’s history where that ‘quantum superposition’ ends and the results fall in a different driver’s favour. Or, less pretentiously, there are many examples where a driver’s lead in the championship after three races has not lasted. The last two seasons are testament to that, and Verstappen had to overcome the arrears on both occasions to claim his first two titles.

Certain decades of F1 show this phenomenon more than others, and there are plenty of caveats with calendar sizes, competitiveness, and reliability. As a thought experiment, however, it seemed only right to go back through each decade and pick out some of the best turnarounds after falling behind in the early stages, if only to show that Verstappen might not have it all his own way in 2023.

All points logged forthwith are those after the first three rounds of that season, followed by the percentage of points that the eventual world champion had at that stage in the year. We're not including the Indianapolis 500 races, part of the world championship between 1950-1960 - although their exclusion made almost no difference either way.

F1 title fight turnarounds have been a theme of the 2020s so far

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2020s – Verstappen comes from behind to end Hamilton era

If there’s a way to prove that big championship leads can be overcome, then Verstappen’s initial 46-point deficit to Charles Leclerc in 2022 is ironically the most glistening example. When Red Bull’s RB18 was fast, but unreliable, the Dutchman’s win in Jeddah was his sole points haul from the opening three races. In the meantime, Leclerc had chalked up 71 points through two wins, a second, and a clean sweep of fastest laps.

But the switch in fortunes was immediate as soon as the F1 circus landed on European shores. Leclerc had a dismal weekend at Imola as Verstappen won both the sprint race and Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, lost their duel in Miami thanks to the Red Bull’s greater straightline speed, and suffered a power unit expiration at Barcelona. In three rounds, Leclerc had forged a great lead – three rounds later, Verstappen was four points clear.

It was altogether closer in 2021, with Hamilton and Verstappen separated by just eight points after the opening three rounds. It rather summed up the punch-for-punch nature of their championship battle: Hamilton extended his lead to 14 points in Spain, Verstappen overcame that in Monaco, continuing in that vein until both stood on the brink of the Abu Dhabi finale – both on 369.5 points.

In the COVID-affected 2020 season, Hamilton largely had it his own way despite a token challenge from Valtteri Bottas early on in proceedings. Typically, Bottas had kicked off the year in swaggering style, leading every lap in the Austria opener to win – but Hamilton won the next three races to stake his claim for a seventh world title.

The 2010s marked a familiar tale of early promise for Ferrari only to end in failure

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2010s – Ferrari fails to convert early leads

On three occasions during the 2010s, Ferrari flew out of the starting blocks and had a driver on top after the opening trio of races – but on none of those occasions did it capitalise. When Sebastian Vettel moved to the team, he had two very serious tilts at a title in 2017 and 2018. In the first of those, he led for the opening 12 races, but the Scuderia had been outdeveloped over the summer break by Mercedes.

Vettel’s Singapore clash with Max Verstappen and team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, followed by a technical failure in Suzuka two rounds later, effectively killed off his hopes of getting back into the hunt as Hamilton had overturned the German’s narrow lead. He regrouped to start brightly in 2018 with a brace of victories, but Vettel’s season infamously tailed off after his Hockenheim crash while leading.

The third of those early Ferrari leads surprisingly came courtesy of Felipe Massa in 2010, who was on a consistent run of form in a season where the top three teams were increasingly evenly matched. Returning to the F1 grid after recovering from his Hungary accident in 2009, where a damper spring struck his helmet, Massa was the only driver to stand on the podium twice in the opening three races, albeit helped in the Bahrain opener as long-time leader Vettel lost a cylinder in his Red Bull’s Renault engine. The Brazilian then took third in the wet-dry Australian Grand Prix.

Five of the titles in the 2010s were won by those leading after three rounds; Vettel and Hamilton converted early leads twice, as Nico Rosberg won the opening four races in 2016 to kick off his championship-winning season in style.

Of the era, the biggest percentage deficit between early leader and eventual champion stands at 62.2% in 2012, as Hamilton was a beacon of consistency amid an irregular start to the year. But Vettel overcame his slow start to battle against Fernando Alonso for the title, as Hamilton struggled with the reliability and sporting issues that pushed his relationship with McLaren to breaking point.

The Schumacher and Alonso eras dominate but the end of the 00s shake-up kept things unpredictable

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2000s – Raikkonen can’t spoil the Schumacher party

The first half of the post-millennium decade featured Michael Schumacher’s relentless run to five successive titles, until his period of dominance was ended by Renault and Alonso.

Raikkonen, however, gave it a good go in 2003 in his second season with McLaren. As the team was struggling to get a tune out of the capricious MP4-18 behind closed doors, it updated the previous year’s MP4-17 to kick off the season. This fixed many of the reliability issues faced in 2002, and the tweaks to the concept had given Raikkonen an early advantage in the title race – although David Coulthard managed to take the car to victory in the opening race of the year in Australia.

Third that day, Raikkonen then won in Malaysia and finished second in Brazil, taking three times as many points as reigning champion Schumacher in the opening trio of events. But Ferrari, also kicking off 2003 with a modified version of the previous year’s car, pressed its F2003-GA into service at Barcelona. While Raikkonen was the more consistent of the two drivers that year, Schumacher’s six victories were ultimately too many for the Finn’s one win to match up to. Ultimately, the German sealed the title by just two points.

In 2008, Raikkonen was first out of the blocks again – this time, as a newly minted champion, and was three points ahead of Nick Heidfeld after the opening three races. Hamilton was a further two points back, tied with Robert Kubica and Heikki Kovalainen, but broke free of the pack to duel with Felipe Massa for the title. Hamilton was tied on points with Alonso and Raikkonen after three races in 2007, all three sitting on 22 points.

The 1990s saw a theme of drivers starting badly only to go on to dominate the campaign

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1990s – Dominant titles began with early missteps

Of most surprise in the 1990s were that the eventual runaway winners of the more dominant title victories did not start particularly well. Schumacher’s second title was arguably more easily won than his first, but Damon Hill got the better start to 1995 owing to his two wins at Buenos Aires and Imola. The arrears could have been even greater for Schumacher to overcome, as Hill was leading the Brazil opener until his gearbox seized; with the full 30 points in hand, the Briton might have enjoyed more confidence during a trying middle portion of the year.

Despite the dominance of Williams in 1993, with its active suspension laden FW15C conquering all before it, Ayrton Senna was on top of the pile after the opening three races. Then driving on a race-by-race basis having been significantly unimpressed by McLaren’s inability to land anything other than a customer Ford engine deal, Senna dazzled in wet conditions twice to take an early championship lead.

Amid a downpour in Brazil, Senna seized the reins after an early penalty to collect wet tyres, slotting in behind Hill in the order. Alain Prost then fell off the road having stuck with slicks, and Senna later dispatched Hill once the race dried up to secure his final home win. This was followed by the wet and murky European Grand Prix at Donington, in which Senna famously darted through the frontguard order to lead by the end of the first lap. But Prost and Williams proved too strong over the course of the season, even though the Frenchman didn’t ever feel completely comfortable with the active car.

Mika Hakkinen also had to come from behind to win the 1999 title, although this was largely helped by Schumacher’s leg break at Silverstone later that year. Eddie Irvine was two points ahead of Hakkinen after the third race at Imola, the two becoming the key title protagonists when Schumacher was sidelined for six races.

In-season development was key to a 1980s title charge

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1980s – Early successes fail to offer long-term advantage

In the age of turbo engines and an accelerating technological battleground, field spreads in the 1980s were often subject to unreliability. Only once during the decade was a title won by a driver on top after three races: Nelson Piquet converted his early lead in 1983 to a second world title while driving for Brabham. Prost, meanwhile, was tied on points with Senna at the start of 1989 – the year of release for the unrelated Belgian techno anthem Pump Up The Jam.

Curiously, Prost converted none of his early points lead advantages: although he kicked off 1982 with two wins, the Ligérien retired from the next three rounds as eventual champion Rosberg began to build up his credentials for an unlikely title run. Prost then lost out to Niki Lauda by half a point in 1984, Piquet in 1987, and Senna in 1988.

His successful titles were the converse arrangement of that; Lotus driver Elio de Angelis led the standings after the opening three races of 1985, but Prost’s near omnipresence on the podium catapulted him to a first title over Michele Alboreto. De Angelis slumped to fifth overall, having scored almost half of his season tally in those opening three races.

In 1986, Senna continued Lotus’s streak of starting strongly with second in Brazil and a win at Jerez, but the Paulista was sidelined as Prost, Piquet and Nigel Mansell battled fiercely for the title.

At the top of the decade, Rene Arnoux’s brace of wins in Brazil and South Africa put the Renault driver in control after the opening three races, but unreliability derailed his campaign as Alan Jones secured Williams’ first F1 title that season. His team-mate Carlos Reutemann attempted to follow that up with a double in 1981, and was eight points clear after the opening three races, but Piquet won that title by a single point.

Hunt pulled off the biggest turnaround in the 1970s - but it is bettered remember for his rivalry and tussle with Lauda

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1970s - Leading after three races more likely to guarantee second

Per the numbers, it’s little surprise that the biggest turnaround of the decade after the opening three rounds belonged to James Hunt. Lauda began 1976 with two wins and a second, while Hunt had one second and two DNFs – and thus, the Briton lagged with just a quarter of the Austrian’s points. Lauda was only benched for two races after his fireball accident at the Nurburgring but, despite his determination to return, Hunt was able to creep over the line.

As expressed by a percentage, Hunt holding only 25% of the then-leader's haul is the biggest margin to overcome to win the title, although it numerically pales to Verstappen’s 46-point arrears in 2022 owing to the inflation in points.

In a fun statistical quirk of the era, the driver who led the points after three races finished second overall between 1973 and 1977. Mario Andretti ended that streak in 1978, taking the ground effect Lotus 78 to an early lead in proceedings until the 79 came online later that year to finish the job. Jackie Stewart was the only other driver to preserve an outright lead after three races, completing his 1971 title effort in Tyrrell’s first season as a constructor. Denny Hulme was tied on points with Emerson Fittipaldi at the same three-race watermark in the following year, but the Brazilian moved past the McLaren driver in Monaco to march towards his first of two titles.

Surtees was one of just two drivers to pull off a title fight comeback after trailling three rounds in during the 1960s

Photo by: David Phipps

1960s – High conversion rate amid shorter calendars

In this decade, the calendar was at its most engorged in 1968, with a whopping 12 races. Imagine having that many rounds today.

Facetiousness aside, the small size of the calendars in the 1960s partly accounts for many of the unchanged orders at the top, as there was arguably limited time for any challengers to build momentum. But that’s a revisionist way of looking at it; there was no real precedent for the goliath racing calendars we have today, and thus it was up to the drivers to make the most of the races they had.

Among the top teams, reliability was generally solid, and thus the notion of building a championship was generally down to a driver’s skill. There were only two occasions where an early lead after three races could not be converted: in 1960, Jack Brabham streaked to five wins in a row to overcome the opening salvo from Bruce McLaren, while Jim Clark’s early lead in 1964 was undone by unreliability.

The Scot suffered four mechanical failures that year which resulted in no points, stalling any momentum during the middle portion of the season. John Surtees and Graham Hill took advantage; Hill had been second to Clark after the first three rounds, but Surtees’ late-season recovery thrust the Ferrari driver into the title fight. In a championship where only the best six results counted, Hill had to drop his fifth-place finish from Spa – giving Surtees the title.

Hawthorn famously beat Moss to the 1958 F1 world title by one point - despite trailing by 10 after three races

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1950s – Short calendars, shared cars, and fastest lap points

Since the calendars were even smaller in the early days of the Formula 1 World Championship, the opening three races often decided things. Thankfully, the Indianapolis 500 – then counted as part of the championship – did not interfere, although shared cars and points for the fastest lap was sometimes responsible for any skew in results.

The first six championships were won by those ahead after the opening three rounds, a streak only ended when Peter Collins was unable to convert his early championship lead in 1956. Juan Manuel Fangio, who had shared cars with Collins in Monaco to allow the two to split their second place, had also split a win with Luigi Musso in the season opener. Wins at Silverstone and the Nurburgring were Fangio’s own pursuits, but a broken steering arm threatened to derail the Argentine’s chances of a fourth F1 title.

Collins still had a shot at the title but gave up his car for Fangio in the Monza finale, assuring his Ferrari team-mate of the title over Maserati’s Stirling Moss, who won the finale in Italy. Moss, considered the best F1 driver never to win the title, was 10 points clear of Mike Hawthorn after the first three races of 1958 but fell short as the Ferrari driver finished second five times in the final seven grands prix.

Can anyone catch Verstappen in 2023?

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