The world championship duel between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, which featured throughout the 2021 season, was understandably described as a confrontation between the British veteran and the young Dutchman. In the controversial final of the season in Abu Dhabi, the Red Bull standard bearer managed to get his hands on the first World title of his career, also becoming the fourth youngest driver ever to be crowned champion. Curiously, however, Verstappen has also approached a record of diametrically opposite sign, which has also become the fourth driver ever for the number of Grand Prix disputed before managing to win a title.
The native of Hasselt in fact took 141 races to center the world championship success. The wait was only longer for Jenson Button, Nigel Mansell and Nico Rosberg. While Verstappen, however, won the world championship crown at the age of 24, Button became champion at 29, Rosberg at 31 and Mansell even at 39. One statistical ‘anomaly’ daughter of the Dutch driver’s F1 debut still as a minor and also of the prolonged Mercedes domination, which prevented the other teams from being able to bring their drivers closer to the maximum goal. At the personal level, an interesting comparison is that between Verstappen and Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc. The two are the same age, but the Monegasque made his F1 debut three years later, thus disputing 61 fewer races than his rival.
In addition, the continuous streak of Mercedes and the difficulty shown in several seasons by Red Bull in keeping pace with the Brackley team and – sometimes – also with Ferrar, have extended the times of Verstappen’s first ‘big game’. The # 33 however, in the first year in which he was directly involved in the fight for the title, managed to leave no stone unturned, hitting that target which seemed destined to reach since its early 2015 debut.
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