Five retirements for Verstappen turn out to be crucial for the championship

2020 was expected to be the year in which Max Verstappen could finally take on the two Mercedes drivers. After three races, expectations looked completely different, because from that moment on, 2020 was all about limiting the gap to Mercedes. In the end, Verstappen won twice, which could have been even more according to The Race editor Scott Mitchell.

“Four of his five DNFs you can make a very convincing case should have been a top-two finish as well, and it was only this misfortune that denied him a runner-up finish”, explains Mitchell. “In short, Verstappen did about as well as he could with firmly the second-fastest car in qualifying. And in the races, he often went above and beyond. This was not the title challenge it was meant to be but it was a phenomenal effort in the circumstances.”

Retirements get in the way of title

Mitchell even calculates that if Verstappen did not have his failure in Austria and Italy three times, it could have been exciting in the championship. Christian Horner also sees that. “In Austria, he could well have won, he had a better strategy than Mercedes ahead, Silverstone he could have won if we hadn’t had the pitstop [before Lewis Hamilton’s last-lap tyre failure].”

“The three Italian races, Monza was probably our weakest, but he’d have been top four [without an engine problem]. Mugello, he would have won, for sure he would have won that race. Tyre-wise everything was just better for us than Mercedes that weekend. And Imola, he was in great shape he would have at least been second.”

Title decider in last race?

Due to the coronavirus infection of Hamilton in Bahrain, he had to watch a race. Horner sees that it could have been a completely different scenario. “Then with Lewis having COVID for these last two races, we’d have probably been within about 25-30 points”. The Race, therefore, shows that, with two races to go, Verstappen was 31 points behind Hamilton in the championship. So Red Bull Racing has a lot of work to do on reliability for 2021, to make sure they resolve the failures