Why Verstappen breaking F1's wins in a season record would be a unique yet misleading feat

"I don't think it really portrays so far actually how the season went in terms of competitiveness.”

Max Verstappen, speaking there at the Belgian Grand Prix two weeks ago, sums it up perfectly. At the time he held an 80-point lead over Charles Leclerc in the drivers’ standings – an already dominant position, his second title beckoning.

Two races and two more Verstappen wins later and the gap is now 109. Leaving his latest home triumph at Zandvoort, the conclusion is inescapable: Verstappen is going to be the 2022 world champion.

But there’s much more he can still achieve. Statistics to strengthen a legend – not that he cares how he’s perceived – and facts to settle debates that used to be fun before social media toxicity.

Essentially, Verstappen is on course to break Formula 1’s single-season victory record, which is currently shared by Michael Schumacher and Ferrari’s F2004, and Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull’s RB9 – on 13 each from 2004 and 2013.

He can also beat Vettel’s solo feat of the longest win streak – nine to see off that 2013 campaign and what will go down as the German’s final F1 title. As will become clear later, this is less likely.

But given the Dutchman is just three wins away from equalling the biggest single-season total, let’s first assess how his feat would stack up against those two legends. Because 2022 is actually an outlier campaign.

Max Verstappen crosses the line at Zandvoort to take win #10 of the season. The record is 13.

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

For a start, the F2004 and RB9 were clearly the quickest cars of those respective seasons. In Autosport’s supertimes metric, the F2004 was on average 0.218% quicker than the BAR 006, while the RB9 headed Mercedes’ W04 by 0.105%.

The 2004 supertimes also do a disservice to Ferrari. Its Bridgestone rubber was not at its best early on in a stint. That made Ferrari's qualifying performance weaker relative to its opposition than its race pace, which was crushing. This was also the era of qualifying with fuel loads required to start the race, further skewing the figures.

By contrast, Ferrari’s F1-75 edges the RB18 as 2022’s quickest car (a distinctly different thing from being the ‘best’) by a 0.052% average.

Hamilton didn’t break the single-season win record in 2014 because of the strength of his then team-mate Nico Rosberg. In 2020, Valtteri Bottas provided a sterner test than Sergio Perez is for Verstappen right now

Both the F2004 and RB9 were evolution/conclusion cars of legendary engineering ancestry. The Jean Todt/Ross Brawn/Rory Byrne/Michael Schumacher superteam produced a car that held so many track records for so long. The RB9 was the best of Adrian Newey’s brilliant high-rake/exhaust blown diffuser concept that went back to 2009. That car’s weakness was, really, the Pirelli rubber it had to run – and it must be remembered it only achieved its dominant run after the compound constructions changed mid-season.

The RB18 did not start off as the class of the 2022 campaign, with its initial reliability struggles, plus the weight issue that thwarted even a driver as good as Verstappen from finding their best form at certain track types (the late-spring street circuit sojourn). And Leclerc took six poles from the first eight races.

The RB18 was also an inconsistent package when it came to tyre preservation and therefore race pace – blown away by Ferrari in Melbourne but finding an edge it has largely maintained (other than its Austria drubbing) at Imola and heading onwards to Miami.

And it won’t go down as the most dominant or fastest car in F1 history either. Of the six cars that share the second-highest single-season win total for one driver – 11 – two stand out as truly historic cars in these areas.

Mercedes' 2014 car holds the biggest 'supertimes' gap to the next fastest machinery in recent history

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

The Mercedes W05 of 2014 and the same team’s W11 from two years ago have the biggest average supertimes gap to closest opposition of any of the cars relating to the record Verstappen is marching towards.

The W05 had a whopping 0.881% average ultimate pace advantage over Williams’ FW36 and the W11 restored Mercedes’ biggest gap to the field in the turbo hybrid era (pre-2022 rule changes) to an only-slightly-less massive 0.594% over the RB16.

The W11 also holds the accolade of producing F1’s fastest-ever lap – in Lewis Hamilton’s hands in qualifying at the 2020 Italian GP. It’s worth recalling that as F1 heads to Monza for the conclusion of its latest triple-header run because the RB18 won’t get near it.

That’s mainly due to minimum car weight now being so high – primarily down to the latest crash structure requirements. Cars of the latest generation will get quicker, just not yet, before they’re changed on safety grounds once again.

The 2014 and 2020 Mercedes cars also handily provide comparisons to Verstappen in 2022. Hamilton didn’t break the single-season win record in 2014 because of the strength of his then team-mate: Nico Rosberg. In 2020, Valtteri Bottas provided a sterner test than Sergio Perez is for Verstappen right now, and Mercedes gave away wins at Silverstone and Monza, while Hamilton missed a race with COVID. Add those back to his 2020 total and Verstappen would need 15 this year to break the record.

But he is surely going to set a new standard, and this shows two things. One is just how brilliant Verstappen is now. He’s moved on spectacularly from the gaffes and crashes that blighted his early F1 career (started at a historically young age, let’s not forget). He possesses searing qualifying speed, is a tyre-management master and hasn’t shown the unacceptably aggressive racing moves from 2021 in this campaign.

The other consideration is what Verstappen refers to above. In addition to the RB18 not being an all-time great car (although Autosport suspects its lineage will produce one that is), Red Bull and Verstappen’s opposition have made this campaign and victory run far easier than it should have been.

Verstappen's Red Bull RB18 has been the class of the field in 2022 - but Ferrari can still give it a run for its money

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Ferrari’s strategy shambles and pitstop blunders continue. Leclerc gave away pole last weekend, without which the race could have been very different had he started ahead and been able to keep Verstappen bottled up.

That actually would have given Mercedes’ brilliant one-stop strategy an even better chance of working, but the Silver Arrows squad has itself erred in handing Red Bull another advantageous element in producing the sub-par W13 in the first place.

Nevertheless, Zandvoort showed both how much of a threat Leclerc can still be to Verstappen this year, as well as Mercedes’ pedigree. That’s why, even if the title is gone, the consecutive win record seems less likely to fall this year.

“We know at some places where we are stronger than others. We know on a high-downforce track that it's a bit of a more difficult situation to get the best out of our package" Max Verstappen

In terms of stopping Verstappen securing the single-season win record, there’s a clear reason why this will be tough even on a perfect Ferrari or Mercedes weekend, which he explained after winning at Zandvoort.

“We know at some places where we are stronger than others,” Verstappen said. “We know on a high-downforce track that it's a bit of a more difficult situation to get the best out of our package. But if you look at the whole season, you have more tracks with kind of medium downforce levels and I think our car is very efficient.”

Of the remaining races, only Singapore and Suzuka get near high-downforce requirements, but they have long straights too – requiring the set-up compromises Red Bull has been on top of in 2022.

Add to that, Red Bull is nailing its on-the-fly strategy calls. Stopping Verstappen for softs under the late safety car last Sunday avoided any Hungary 2019 or Spain 2021 defeats through a lack of aggression.

A Verstappen single-season win record – in addition to his coming 2022 title coronation – might stand out from those he’s surely about to topple, but it’s not because he or his team have been anything other than excellent overall.

Can anyone stop Max Verstappen taking the wins-per-season record?

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images