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 (Dec 13).

Mercedes, who began the year with an engine problem in testing in February and dodged a bullet when the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic delayed the start of the season until July 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 three laps from the end of the Bahrain GP and George Russell's Williams struck down in FP1 in Abu Dhabi - had obliged them to turn down the wick on all their engines.