GP Racing UK November 2022

Two world championships now for Max Verstappen, both amply deserved for a driver of his outstanding calibre. Is it too much to ask that when the third one rolls around, it won’t be overshadowed by some absurd, abstruse and arcane procedural shenanigans? I refer not to the fact that the stately process under which print media operates dictated that the cover of this month’s issue went to press before the Japanese Grand Prix weekend (should you be asking the question which will no doubt be screamed when the cover is paraded on social media: “Why no mention of the championship winner, huh?”). It was likely but not certain that Max would get it over the line at Suzuka. This uncertainty extended to the three-lapsplus-40-minutes race itself, during which most observers – from…

I liked this shot at the time because you could tell by the body language that, over and above the adrenaline rush these two drivers had experienced while racing each other, there was genuine warmth and respect between them. It’s taken on an additional poignancy since because this – the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix – was a time when the world title fight was very much on, before Ferrari’s challenge fizzled out inconsequentially. What really made this race for me was the balance of performance between the two cars. Max’s Red Bull was showing flashes of the straightline speed that would make it unbeatable later on, but Charles was counterpunching neatly with DRS and the Ferrari’s grunt out of corners. Where Jeddah, Saudi Arabia When 9.53pm, Sunday 27 March 2022 Details Canon EOS-1D X…

Red Bull’s double DNF in the season opener put a nagging doubt in your mind every time you saw the cars on track in the opening segment of the season. A hard-fought win in Saudi Arabia showed Max Verstappen had a quick enough car, but then here in Australia Charles Leclerc always seemed to be out of reach during the race – even before Max retired from second place with a broken fuel line. I was on the raised gantry overlooking the first corner. Usually you’re here to capture the inevitable opening-lap fracas and a few overtakes, but it also gave an overhead view of where Max stopped. You could tell by the way he was walking and the set of his shoulders that he was furious rather than disappointed. I…

For me this was one of the defining races of the year. By this race – the French Grand Prix, immediately after the half-way point of the season – Ferrari and Charles Leclerc had squandered the advantage they’d built up in those early rounds when Red Bull’s reliability was suspect and the car was a handful. Now, whenever Leclerc was in front, you had the feeling something was about to go wrong. Since it was likely to be the last French Grand Prix for a while, I wanted to get a classic Paul Ricard rear-on shot – like one of those from the 1970s with fat-tyred cars slipstreaming each other into the distance. Charles kept coming round ahead of Max, but for how long? Leclerc’s DNF here turned a deficit of 38…

It’s said that some people make winning look easy. I wouldn’t agree with that all the time but it’s often the case that a great driver can get into a zone where it seems very few things go wrong for them – even when they do go wrong. In 2022 Max had ‘moments’ in Spain and Hungary and still prospered. It’s also possible for a driver to feel nothing goes their way. I’d place this race, in Spa, at the intersection of those two trajectories. Max was mighty, majestic, well into a winning streak. Charles Leclerc had a grid penalty and then got someone else’s visor tear-off stuck in his brake duct. Max’s joy in this shot isn’t just the satisfaction of winning at one of the great circuits, it’s the knowledge…

Although it’s a cliché, and a slightly pompous one at that, to describe photography as “painting with light”, essentially that is what we’re doing. And an essential prerequisite of that is, er, light. There wasn’t a lot of that being splashed about at any point during Sunday afternoon at Suzuka this year. There was a lot of uncertainty as the race unfolded about what, if any, points would be awarded. And indeed, Max Verstappen only learned he’d won the championship when he was doing his interviews. The critics disapproved. For purely selfish reasons I’m broadly in agreement. It would have been a lot nicer to get a celebration shot in the balmy afternoon sunshine of Austin rather than this damp and sparingly lit bit of track! Where Suzuka, Japan When 5.40pm, Sunday 9 October…