The confusion that muted Verstappen’s title celebrations
Max Verstappen
It’s bizarre to think that Max Verstappen is a two-time world champion who has, on neither occasion, been able to celebrate and enjoy his moment of glory immediately.
In 2021 the hotly contested world championship ran to the wire, with Verstappen beating Lewis Hamilton to the crown on the final lap of the final race of the year.
On that occasion, a question mark surrounded whether the race result would stand, or be wound back, amid protests from Mercedes over how the season was concluded.
This time around the situation couldn’t be more different.
Verstappen has been the dominant force in the championship despite a sluggish start. For much fo the year, it has been a matter of when rather than if he’d take a second title.
His first opportunity, mathematically, was the Singapore Grand Prix, but last weekend’s Japanese round was the more likely scene of his 2022 success.
And so it proved, but in confusing scenes that robbed the 25-year-old of the moment of adulation he, and Red Bull, deserved.
Rain in Suzuka saw the race suspended for an extended period before being resumed. That it did so meant not only that we got a sporting result, and an exciting if abridged spectacle, but also that a little-known article within the Formula 1 Sporting Regulations was invoked.
Cast your mind back to last year’s Belgian ‘Grand Prix’, in inverted commas because, while technically it is counted as a race, it was little more than a bureaucratic farce.
The cars circulated behind the Safety Car, in grid order, and were never released for any competitive running. Yet somehow that qualified for championship points, albeit only half points.
Given the uproar that followed, and rightly so, the teams and FIA worked together to amend the rules to ensure a repeat scenario never happens again.
A matrix was created, with thresholds for what number of points would be awarded based on what percentage of the scheduled distance was completed before the race stopped and, crucially, not restarted.
It was that point that caught out much of the watching world on Sunday, not to mention the majority of the Formula 1 paddock.
As Verstappen streaked across the line, television graphics declared him world champion for the second time. The timing totem during the race displayed full points.
The latter was dismissed as a glitch, that the person in charge of graphics had shown the wrong one. It was derided and ridiculed on social media.
But more curiously was the proclamation of Verstappen as the world champion following the race.
By established logic, indeed that which had existed up until the end of 2021, he had scored 19 points. Leclerc, having been relegated to third courtesy of a five-second time penalty, accumulated 12.
To seal the championship in Suzuka, Verstappen had to outscore Leclerc by eight points. Or, put another way, his title advantage needed to be at least 112 points.
Common logic suggested he’d increased his advantage to 111. The race had only run 28 laps, and therefore by the new points matrix for 2022 only 75 percent points would be awarded – ergo Verstappen picked up 19 instead of 25, and Leclerc 12 instead of 15.
Only Verstappen was awarded 25 and Leclerc 15, full points as though the race had run its full 53 lap distance (or at least reached Lap 41 from which point full points were awarded).
“Honestly, I sought clarification from the FIA saying somehow that it’s full awards today in terms of points,” said Ferrari’s team boss, Mattia Binotto, highlighting the confusion that reigned over the situation.
“We simply accepted [it]. I don’t think there is much discussion [on] that.
“We confused ourselves,” he added how the Ferrari pit wall had calculated the points standings as the race finished.
“So we were confused and we thought it would not have been the full awards. Initially, our calculation was such that he [Verstappen] was not world champion, but at the end, clarification has been given, which is an okay clarification.”
Article 6.5 of the Formula 1 Sporting Regulations covers the newly introduced points matrix and the conditions under which it is employed.
It states, in part, that “if a race is suspended in accordance with Article 57, and cannot be resumed…” Only in Suzuka, it was resumed, and so the points matrix was redundant.
The only points system therefore available was the full award; 25 for a win down to a single point for 10th.
The nuance of the language in that specific article of the sporting regulations is therefore what saw Verstappen crowned, and left the watching world scrambling to understand what the hell just happened.
As a result of the confusion and contradictions that abounded, there was no glorious moment of victory, no immense outpouring of emotion, no spectacular celebration. Instead, Verstappen sat in a chair in an anteroom, looking as confused as the rest of us.
For a sport that invested so much time and effort into ensuring the events of last year’s Belgian ‘Grand Prix’ never happened again, they instead robbed us not of a single race result, but of the ability to celebrate a world championship in the manner it deserves.
