Former F1 star Damon Hill has suggested Ferrari ’s struggles have been key to Max Verstappen ’s success this season. The Dutchman clinched his second consecutive world title at the Japanese Grand Prix by winning his 12th race win of the campaign.
After winning two of the first three races of the season, things looked encouraging for Ferrari's Charles Leclerc at the Prancing Horse.
But incorrect pit stop strategies, inexplicable failures with his car, and even the odd driver error, Leclerc spinning off at the French GP for example, saw the Monegasque’s title challenge slowly fade away and Verstappen claim his second world title following the Japanese GP. Leclerc is now third in the driver’s championship behind Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez.
For the first time since 2008, Ferrari found themselves in a position to compete for the title. But after the team cost their driver but with a significant number of points needlessly frittered away by both team and driver, they will be left to rue what could have been as they watched Red Bull celebrate Verstappen’s second championship win.
Speaking on the latest F1 Nation podcast via Planet F1, while acknowledging his abilities, Hill reckons the Scuderia made it easier for Verstappen to become a multiple world champion. “I think it’s very difficult to actually decide whether it’s Red Bull and Max’s brilliance this season, an almost perfect performance, or whether it was Ferrari shooting themselves in the foot," he said.
“It was a lamentable at times performance from them because they showed so much promise at the beginning and between the team strategy and a few driver errors and basically lacking the ability to move forward with that car they didn’t provide a challenge to Max.” Verstappen clinched the title with four races left in the campaign and Hill claimed he was “sublimely brilliant” in 2022.
The F1 pundit continued: “It’s still close between Sergio and Charles in the championship, so if you took Max out the equation, you could say, ‘okay, well that’s the difference’. Max was 20 seconds ahead of Charles and Sergio in Japan in the wet after 20 laps. He was a second lap quicker and Ferrari just couldn’t play with that at all, they were done by then.
“Their tyres were rooted weren’t they, and Charles’ tyres were rooted which kind of indicates that their set-up is not working the tyres in the way that Red Bull are. They couldn’t find a challenge.
"Max’s confidence was… he was serene really wasn’t he. He was sublimely brilliant all year, and never look rattled.” Verstappen will aim to continue his dominant run at Sunday's US GP, where he held off Lewis Hamilton to clinch an important victory in their titanic title fight last year.
