Formula 1: 5 mistakes that cost Lewis Hamilton the championship

Mistake number 1: No teamwork during qualifying

It’s hard to win a modern Formula 1 race on Sunday without also excelling in qualifying on Saturday. Max Verstappen took 10 pole positions to Hamilton’s five over the 22-race season, and he was in the favored slot on Sunday at lights out.

He also had his teammate, Sergio Perez, right behind him, while Valtteri Bottas, in his last race as Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate, qualified in sixth place, a row too far back to make a difference at the start. Bottas fell to eighth by turn three and quickly became a non-factor in the race.

But a keener look back at Saturday’s events reveals a pattern: Red Bull made decisions that elevated both drivers and moved the team forward, while Mercedes prioritized Hamilton.

On the second run in Q3, Mercedes put Hamilton in clear air ahead of his teammate for his fast laps, while Perez towed Verstappen through the track’s second sector, where Mercedes had been whipping them thoroughly through practice and qualifying.

Perez then ducked out of the way before the hotel section, allowing Verstappen to sling past him while also giving himself enough time and space to get back up to speed and, with aerodynamic assistance from his now-content teammate, turn in a final lap good enough for P4.

Coupled with a solid start on soft tires that put him ahead of Lando Norris and into P3 by turn 3, that put Perez in position to help Verstappen 20 laps later.

That brilliant stretch of laps 20 and 21 during which Perez battled Hamilton, allowing Verstappen to close the gap to his rival from 11 seconds to less than a second and a half, transformed this race from a runaway Mercedes win to a nail-biter in a matter of three minutes.

This brilliant display between Perez and Hamilton was one of the most exciting on-track battles all season, but Hamilton called it “dangerous driving.”

Hamilton, of all people, should know that aggressive does not equal dangerous; a younger Hamilton stuck his front wing in plenty of places it shouldn’t have fit. It’s one of the reasons why he had seven titles going into Sunday’s race.