Last year, Max Verstappen became Formula 1 world champion for the first time after a battle that lasted from the first to the last race of the year against Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes, a rivalry that will be remembered for many years.
Initially, the 2022 season of motorsport’s highest category also looked like it was going to be marked by an intense fight for the title: in the first races of the campaign, Red Bull and Ferrari shared the victories, but the problems of The reliability of the Austrian team put the Maranello team in the lead.
Now, after contesting the ninth race of the season, the Canadian Grand Prix, where Max Verstappen took his fifth victory in the last six races, the situation is very different. In fact, the only victory that he did not achieve was for his teammate, the Mexican Sergio Pérez, who climbed to the top in Monaco.
The one from Guadalajara is right now Verstappen ‘s immediate pursuer in the Drivers’ World Championship, with a 46-point disadvantage. Checo has taken over from Charles Leclerc, the Ferrari driver won two of the first three races and was a fairly solid leader at the time, but now he is 49 points behind.
However, in the last four races he has been forced to retire in two of them, both when he was leading, due to reliability problems, something that added to the penalty that made him start from the last row of the grid at the Canadian GP , have greatly reduced their title options.
For this reason, the situation for Red Bull at the moment seems to be relatively calm, with a margin of 76 points over its biggest and only rival, Ferrari , in the constructors’ standings.
Given the recent form of both teams, former Formula 1 owner Bernie Ecclestone does not expect Ferrari and Leclerc to be true world title contenders, either as constructors or drivers.
“Like many others, I was confident that Ferrari would be world champion again after fourteen years. But now I have to say that anyone who has put their money on Ferrari or Leclerc will go home empty-handed,” Ecclestone told Blick .
“Mistakes have started to happen at Ferrari, reliability tends to be reminiscent of the past and the drivers themselves are not always confident when they are on the track. Therefore, Max has it very easy and that has been reflected with six wins already.” , concluded the British veteran.
