The five best race drives of F1 2022

A record-breaking 22-round calendar provided ample opportunity for the Formula 1 field to impress this season. But some Sunday performances were more equal than others. When weekends were on course to be scuppered by grid penalties, occasionally drivers defied the odds to salvage success with a surge up the order. Others shone in sometimes substandard machinery. Or, in the case of Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, exerted sheer dominance over their rivals.

When it came to picking the top five drives of 2022, there were always going to be casualties. Autosport doesn’t do long-winded ‘honourable mentions’, so there was no room for Sebastian Vettel’s fightback from a botched pitstop in the United States. Likewise, Lando Norris misses out despite steering the troubled McLaren MCL36 to the only non-Mercedes, Ferrari, and Red Bull podium of the year at Imola, and for battling through tonsilitis to score points in Spain. And, while it may well have earned him a pukka AlphaTauri seat for 2023, you won’t find Nyck de Vries slotting ninth at Monza here either.