Formula 1: Two more drivers Max Verstappen can pass in 2022
By Asher Fair
Max Verstappen can ascend to as high as sixth place on the all-time Formula 1 wins list, and he is only in his age 24 season.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen appears to be well on his way to winning a second consecutive Formula 1 world championship, as he has earned eight wins in the 2022 season’s first 13 races and leads Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc by 80 points in the driver standings.
Verstappen’s success has resulted in him passing nine drivers on the all-time Formula 1 wins list already this year, and there is a chance that he can pass two more.
The 24-year-old Dutchman entered the year tied with two-time world champion Mika Hakkinen for 16th place on the list with 20. Now at 28, he has since passed Hakkinen and eight others.
He passed 2007 world champion Kimi Raikkonen (21), 1996 world champion Damon Hill (22), 2016 world champion Nico Rosberg (23), three-time world champion Nelson Piquet (23), five-time world champion Juan Manuel Fangio (24), three-time world champion Niki Lauda (25), two-time world champion Jim Clark (25), and three-time world champion Jackie Stewart (27).
With nine races remaining on the 2022 calendar, he could still pass 1992 world champion Nigel Mansell (31) and two-time world champion Fernando Alonso (32).
Passing Alonso would take a 13-win season, something that has only ever been pulled off by seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher (2004) and four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel (2013).
But Verstappen is on pace to do it; he has won no fewer than five races during any nine-race span this year.
The fact that he has a legitimate chance to pull this off in a season during which Red Bull have had the second fastest car (or, at the very least, an equally fast car) to Ferrari makes it even more impressive.
Passing Alonso would put Verstappen sixth on the all-time wins list, trailing only seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton (103), Schumacher (91), Vettel (53), four-time world champion Alain Prost (51), and three-time world champion Ayrton Senna (41).
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This would also set up a unique scenario in which four of Formula 1’s seven winningest drivers of all-time are competing in the same season, since Hamilton, Vettel, and Alonso still compete. Vettel is set to retire at the end of the season.