It was only inevitable a season filled with controversy could end in such a controversial manner. Hamilton and Verstappen had been at each other’s necks all season, and it was evident that whilst there could only be one winner, nobody would ever agree on who the deserved winner was. Many will watch the race in Abu Dhabi from Sunday and ask how you could possibly dispute Hamilton deserving the title. However, a season is a lot more than one race, and whilst it was Hamilton who suffered from a lot of bad luck in Abu Dhabi, it was Verstappen who suffered most across the season, and therefore, you could argue justice was served.
1 race in Abu Dhabi, Verstappen’s luck was in, but at every other point in the season, was it ever in? Races in Baku, Britain and Hungary losing significant points which could have seen the title wrapped up to the point where the last race in Abu Dhabi would’ve been irrelevant to the drivers championship.
With just 3 laps to go in Baku, a tyre failure saw Max Verstappen crash out of the race from the lead. A loss of 25 points totally out of his control. In Britain, again, taken out from the lead, this time not through a tyre failure, but through his title rival, a crash which saw him end up in hospital, whilst losing 26 points to his rival. A third key example comes from Hungary, in which Hamilton’s teammate Bottas breaked late, crashing into Lando Norris, who then went in to Verstappen, who plummeted from 2nd to 13th. Whilst Verstappen recovered to 8th, another crash completely out of control saw him lose a minimum of 14 points.
In total, from 3 races alone, Verstappen lost a minimum of 65 points through no fault of his own. Whilst luck was on his side in Abu Dhabi, it was far from that the rest of the season, and in the end there can be no doubt who the deserved winner of the World Divers Championship was – Max Verstappen.
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