Everything might come to those who wait but it seemed a very long one for Max Verstappen, from Silverstone's Anniversary GP on Aug 9 until the season finale in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.

Mercedes, who began the year with an engine problem and dodged a bullet when the Covid-19 pandemic delayed the start of the season and enabled them to fix it, ended it with another. Their W11 was unsettled on the softest Pirelli tyre, but Toto Wolff also admitted that an MGU-K problem - which had seen Sergio Perez's Racing Point expire at the Bahrain GP and George Russell's Williams struck down in FP 1 in Abu Dhabi - had obliged them to turn down the wick on all their engines. That explained why Red Bull's Hondas had superior maximum speed down the long straight.