3 times Max Verstappen lost the races he should have won

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen has become one of the greatest F1 drivers owing to his results and performances in the last couple of years. The Dutch driver, who was hailed the 'talent of the century' by former three-time F1 world champion Niki Lauda after the former's maiden win in Spain in 2016, has gone from strength to strength in the 2020s.

After winning his first world title in 2021, the 27-year-old has broken several records with the Austrian team and entered the conversation of being an 'F1 Great'. But in the initial years of his career, Verstappen was a rough diamond as he mixed stunning performances with huge mistakes.

Due to his error-prone driving style, Max Verstappen even left multiple race wins on the table. Below is the list of three races that he did not win but should have:

#Max Verstappen's last race exploits in China 2018

The Red Bull driver and his then-teammate Daniel Ricciardo found themselves fighting for a potential race win after the race safety car restart meant that both drivers were on fresher tires compared to their rivals around them.

Ahead of his teammate, Verstappen was the first to make the jump and go past Kimi Raikkonen; however, he misjudged the fast sequence while passing Lewis Hamilton. He made further mistakes later on as he collided with Sebastian Vettel while Daniel Ricciardo went on to win the race.

#Mexico 2019

Max Verstappen has been the master around the Autodrome Hermanos Rodriguez Circuit ever since it returned to the F1 calendar in 2015. The Hasselt native has won around the track on multiple occasions, including 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022, and 2023, respectively. However, he had the chance to win in the 2019 edition of the race as well, but got himself a five-place penalty in the qualifying session for ignoring yellow flags in Q3.

In the main race, the Dutchman made a great start and moved up a couple of places, and was fighting alongside then Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton at the front. However, he went deep into turn two while overtaking the British driver and went onto the grass, which caused damage to his car. The mistake ruined his race while Hamilton went on to pull off a stunning one-stop strategy to claim the win in Mexico.

#Turkey 2020

Max Verstappen started the race from the front row of the grid but, owing to a poor start, tumbled down the field into P7 at the first corner. However, he was able to recover some of the positions and found himself in P4 after the first lap.

But on lap 18 of the race, whilst chasing Sergio Perez for P2, Verstappen spun off the track and lost quite a lot of positions and momentum. He ultimately finished the race in P6, while Lewis Hamilton, who was behind him at one point in time, claimed victory.

Edited by Anisha Chatterjee