Max Verstappen’s victory on Sunday was undoubtedly one of his finest, not least because this was the lowest starting position he’s ever won a race from.
He stormed through to win from 17th on the grid, albeit with two empty spaces ahead of him. The last driver to win from that far back was Kimi Raikkonen in the 2005 Japanese Grand Prix.
F1’s grid is too small for anyone to be able to break the record for winning a race from the lowest starting position. The record is still held by John Watson, who won the 1983 United States Grand Prix West at Long Beach from 22nd. The last race at which that could have been equalled was the 2016 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, before Manor collapsed, leaving F1 with 10 teams.
The lowest starting position Verstappen had previously won a race from was 14th, at the 2022 Belgian Grand Prix. He has now taken victories from 10 different starting positions on the grid, breaking Fernando Alonso’s record of nine.
Verstappen ended a run of 10 consecutive grands prix without a victory to take the 62nd win of his career. This means he has now won as many times as F1’s first six world champions combined: Giuseppe Farina (five), Juan Manuel Fangio (24), Alberto Ascari (13), Mike Hawthorn (three), Jack Brabham (14) and Phil Hill (three). Their careers spanned the first two decades of the world championship and they claimed 13 championships between them.
Although this was Verstappen’s eighth victory this season, it was the first he’s scored from outside the front row. He is the fifth different driver to win from off the front row this year, joining Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris and George Russell. F1 last had five winners from outside the front row in 2020, including Verstappen and Hamilton again, plus Valtteri Bottas, Pierre Gasly and Sergio Perez.
On Saturday, Verstappen saw his run of winning every sprint race this year broken, by Norris. Later that day rain prevented qualifying from going ahead as scheduled, so it was postponed to Sunday, as last happened when Super Typhoon Hagibis disrupted the 2019 Japanese Grand Prix.
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When it finally began, Norris claimed the eighth pole position of his career. He now has as many as John Surtees, Jenson Button and Riccardo Patrese.
Esteban Ocon took his best starting position of the season…
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