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By the numbers: the key stats behind Max Verstappen's first F1 world title
These are the stats – and the context behind them – that propelled the Red Bull Racing Honda star to the F1 world title in 2021.
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Number 33 became number one – the only two numbers that really counted after Max Verstappen secured his maiden Formula One world title for Red Bull Racing Honda in 2021 with an extraordinary last-gasp victory in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Dig a little deeper, though, and there's any number of stats that matter to provide context, nuance and an explanation as to how – and why – Red Bull's flying Dutchman soared to the sport's summit after a 2021 F1 season for the ages, where he dethroned defending and seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes.
Here are the key numbers from Max's world championship-winning campaign in 2021.
Monaco was one of three races where Max led every lap
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652
Max led 652 laps during the season, which equates to 50.2 percent of all race laps, more than double the number of laps led by Hamilton (297), and more than the other nine drivers who led races combined (348). More than half of the 1,239 laps Max had led in his career up until this point came during the 2021 season. In the season finale in Abu Dhabi? Max led for one lap – the final one.
141
Max achieved the world title in his 141st F1 start, 23 of which came with Scuderia Toro Rosso (2015-16) before his switch to Red Bull Racing for the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix, which he won on debut for the team.
18
Podium finishes in 2021 of the 60 in Max's career up until the 2021 season. Since the beginning of 2018, Max was on the podium for 49 of 81 races, equating to 60 percent of all Grands Prix held in four years.
Max's win at home at Zandvoort was one of his most memorable
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13
Races out of 22 where Red Bull Racing had the fastest pit stop of the Grand Prix in 2021 (Verstappen in Bahrain, Portugal, Monaco, Azerbaijan, Styria, Austria, Hungary, Netherlands, Turkey, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, and Sergio Pérez in France and Saudi Arabia).
10
Both the number of wins during the season – of the 20 in Max's career at this point – and the number of 2021 pole positions (of a career total of 13). Max's most dominant run came in the France-Styria-Austria triple-header, where he won three races in succession for the first time and led all 142 laps across the Styrian and Austrian Grands Prix at the Red Bull Ring.
More F1 content from Max's title-winning season
9
Number of seconds Max had in hand over Hamilton over 5,487km in all of the races both drivers ran to their completion in 2021 (excluding the Azerbaijan, British, Belgian and Italian Grands Prix).
6
Fastest laps of the 2021 season of the 16 in Max's career, five of which earned an extra world championship point for finishing inside the top 10 in Spain, France, Austria, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
Red Bull's pit stops were the gold standard yet again
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4
Successive years where Red Bull Racing has won the DHL Fastest Pit Stop Award for the team with the fastest average pit stop time over the course of a season. Of the fastest pit stops in 2021, Red Bull had the eight fastest single stops and nine of the top 10.
2
Max is the second world champion to win the title for Red Bull Racing after Sebastian Vettel won four in a row from 2010 to 2013.
More F1 content from Max's title-winning season
1.88
In seconds, the fastest pit stop of the season when Max pitted on lap 40 of the Hungarian Grand Prix – one of five sub-two-second stops for the team that season.
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