Max Verstappen’s victory in the 2022 Formula 1 French Grand Prix last Sunday, taking advantage of the accident and, consequently, abandonment of Charles Leclerc, generated a difference in points between the first and second classified that the highest category of motorsport I haven’t seen since the 2020 season.
After Paul Ricard’s race, the Dutch Red Bull driver adds a total of 233 points compared to 170 for the Monegasque, that is, they are separated by a difference of 63 points. The last time a championship leader was 63 or more points clear of the second placed driver was in 2020, with Lewis Hamilton starring.
In the season that was severely affected by the pandemic, Formula 1 was only able to contest 17 races, and in the eleventh, after the Eifel Grand Prix at the Nurburgring, Hamilton stretched the gap with respect to his teammate at the time.
The category came from competing in the Russian Grand Prix in Sochi and the Briton came as leader of the standings with 205 points, ahead of the other Mercedes driver, the Finn Valtteri Bottas, who had 161 units, that is, 44 points less than the now seven-time champion.
Following Hamilton ‘s victory in Germany and Bottas ‘s accident, which by the way was the last time to date that Mercedes suffered a reliability DNF in one of its cars, the British driver put his seventh F1 title on track by taking a lead of 69 points over his teammate, with 230 units in his locker compared to 161 for the Finn.
After this blow to the table, Hamilton won four more races, until COVID-19 forced him to miss a grand prix, at which point George Russell substituted for him at the Sakhir Grand Prix. Despite this, the difference between the leader and the second classified, Bottas , never fell below 60 points.
At the end of that season, Hamilton added 347 points, while the Finnish Mercedes driver had to settle for 223, that is, a difference of no more and no less than 124 points in just 17 races (16 if we count that Lewis lost one). Max Verstappen , who in the following campaign would become world champion, finished third, just nine points behind Bottas .
In 2021, the difference between the top two finishers has never been so great, in fact, the maximum was the 33-point advantage with which Verstappen arrived at the British GP, a race in which he ended up against the wall after an accident. with Hamilton , while the latter won and cut much of the gap. However, in this 2022, the distance between Red Bull and Leclerc is already 63 in the absence of a race to be played to reach the summer break.
Charles Leclerc’s accident when he was leading the 2022 French GP of F1
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