The COVID-19-affected 2020 Formula 1 season saw Lewis Hamilton secure his seventh Formula 1 Drivers’ Championship title, equalling Michael Schumacher’s record which many fans felt was unbeatable when he first set it.
Hamilton had momentum coming into F1, winning the Formula 3 Euro Series in 2005 and the GP2 Series in the following year, ahead of his F1 debut with McLaren in 2007.
His teammate for his rookie year was the two-time reigning and defending World Champion Fernando Alonso, a very tough opponent for the young Brit. However, Hamilton took little time to adapt to life in F1 and managed to finish as the runner-up in the Drivers’ Championship, missing out on the title by just a single point, and ahead of his teammate on countback.
In the following season, Hamilton managed to win the World Championship, reversing his fate from the previous year by winning the title by a single point, after a last lap overtake at the final round of the season. Hamilton then had some tougher years from 2009 to 2013, as he did not have a great car.
Hamilton has won seven F1 world titles, six with Mercedes
He still managed to finish in the top five in the F1 Drivers’ Championship in all of these seasons, as well as taking at least one win in each year, but he never had a sustained title charge. He spent the final year of this slump with the Mercedes team after he made the bold decision to move from the more established McLaren at the end of the 2012 season.
The 2014 season saw several regulation changes, which allowed Mercedes to become the sport’s dominant team and opened the door for Hamilton to win his second World Championship. Hamilton beat his teammate, Nico Rosberg, to the title in 2014 and did the same in 2015.
However, Rosberg beat Hamilton by just five points to win the Drivers’ Championship in 2016, following an unlucky reliability-related retirement at the 16th round of the season.
Rosberg retired at the end of the season and Valtteri Bottas replaced him. Hamilton then went on to win four World Championships in a row, but this run came to an end in 2021 when he was beaten to the title by Max Verstappen following a dramatic season that had a controversial finale.
Verstappen now has two-back-to back titles in his pocket
The 2021 title was Verstappen’s first, and it came in the first year in which the Dutchman had a car that was capable of constantly challenging Mercedes. Verstappen joined the sport with Toro Rosso in 2015, becoming the youngest driver to start an F1 race.
In the following year, he was promoted to the Red Bull team after just a few rounds, and he won his first race with the team. Verstappen has won at least two races in every season since and has particularly thrived since the Red Bull Honda partnership began in 2019.
In the 2021 season, Verstappen showed how he can perform under great pressure, particularly at races towards the end of the season such as the United States Grand Prix. He had numerous outstanding performances throughout the season, and he led more laps than every other driver combined.
Verstappen has dominated the 2022 season so far, winning the title with four races remaining. He has also won 18 races so far this year, breaking Michael Schumacher’s record for the most wins in a single season.
The question is, can Verstappen have as good of a career as Hamilton?
Following on from a tough start to the season, which saw him fail to finish in two of the opening three Grand Prix, he has been brilliant and made very few mistakes. He now has 34 F1 wins, which is the sixth most of any driver in the sport’s history.
If Red Bull and Adrian Newey keep producing great cars, it is hard to see how he doesn’t win more World Championships, as his teammate is always likely to be a ‘number two driver’. Verstappen has a contract with Red Bull until 2026, with a salary of €46 million, as said by the experts of fernandoalonso-fanclub.it.
It has also been confirmed that Verstappen has an ‘escape clause’ in his contract which would allow him to leave the team if he is not given a competitive car.
Therefore, Max Verstappen has everything it takes to be the next Lewis Hamilton and attempt to break his shared seven-title record with Schumacher, as well as surpass his 103 wins.
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