Formula One is among the most exciting and dramatic sports. Over the years, it has produced many shocking moments, and the 2022 season was no different.
With the struggles experienced by Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton was not a factor, and the title came down to a struggle between Ferrari and Red Bull. US bookmakers did a lot of business on the title battle, as racing fans tried to predict whether Max Verstappen or Charles Leclerc would emerge as the winner.
Along the way there were plenty of twists, turns and shocks. Here are five of the most notable:
Leclerc's spin
Leclerc and Verstappen traded blows from the start. Verstappen won in Saudi Arabia, but Leclerc triumphed in Bahrain and Australia to open a 43-point lead going into the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
Verstappen was on pole and Leclerc in second place, but the Ferrari driver made a slow start and was overtaken by both Sergio Perez and Lando Norris.
Leclerc fought hard to get back into the race and going into lap 54, was in third, behind Perez, who trailed Verstappen.
In an attempt to get into Drag Reduction System (DRS) range behind Perez, he misjudged his approach to Variante Alta and hit the first curb, resulting in a spin and collision with the exit barrier.
He rejoined the race and after a pitstop, eventually came through to finish sixth, limiting the damage, but the unforced error set the tone for what would turn out to be a shocking season for Ferrari.
Ferrari's Monte Carlo disaster
Verstappen's victories in Spain and at the Miami Grand Prix, where Ferrari suffered engine failures, left Leclerc in second place in the Drivers' Championship, going into his home Grand Prix in Monaco.
The weekend started well for Ferrari as they secured first and second place on the grid, but two shockingly bad decisions meant that they ended up with a second and a fourth, with Leclerc failing to finish on the podium and once again behind Verstappen, who finished third.
The first error came when Ferrari delayed bringing Leclerc in to change to intermediate tires after the rain had stopped early in the race. They compounded this error by double-stacking the drivers for the second pitstop, an unforced strategy error that was not the last for the team.
It happened again three races later, at Silverstone. Leclerc appeared to be on course to win that race when Verstappen's car had been hit by debris.
Yet, when the safety car was brought out in the closing stages, Ferrari chose to leave Leclerc out on his old tires, instead pitting Carlos Sainz Jr. This left Leclerc as an easy target, and he eventually finished fourth while Sainz Jr went on to win the race.
Leclerc's dramatic Paul Ricard shunt
When Ferrari was not making strategic errors, Leclerc himself contributed his own mistakes, one of the most glaring of which came at the French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard. Victory in Austria had enabled him to close the gap in the Drivers' Championship and he backed that up by claiming pole position in France.
Leclerc started well, maintaining his lead over Verstappen. On lap 17, Red Bull made the decision to bring Verstappen in for a pitstop, hoping to pull off an undercut maneuver. In the end, they didn't need to worry because Leclerc crashed out of the race in spectacular style on the very next lap.
Driver error was ultimately to blame for his losing control of the rear of the car and slamming into the tire wall.
Fortunately, Leclerc was unhurt and took to the radio to scream his frustration, but that sound, along with the images of his car stuck in the tire wall came to represent Ferrari's miserable season.
2021 controversy returns
Although Max Verstappen had an impressive year and was a deserved winner of the Drivers' Championship, things didn't always run smoothly for the Red Bull driver as the fallout from the controversial 2021 season continued to linger.
Verstappen had claimed the title last year after narrowly beating Lewis Hamilton in the final race, overtaking on the final lap after a late change to the procedures for the safety car. The result stood after protests but was highly controversial and race director Michael Masi was later removed from his post.
With Verstappen once again leading in 2022, memories of that controversial finish, which still rankle with Mercedes and with Hamilton, were brought back to the fore when the FIA ruled that Red Bull had been in breach of the rules on spending in 2021.
The FIA ruled that they would face a fine and what were described as 'minor sporting penalties'. Those unspecified penalties did not turn out to mean a retrospective change to the outcome of the 2021 championship, but it was an unwelcome blast from the recent past for Red Bull.
Near miss at Suzuka
There has been significant progress in making Formula One safer for drivers, but it remains one of the most dangerous sports in the world and there was a reminder of that at the Japanese Grand Prix.
The race got underway in torrential rain and on the very first lap, Carlos Sainz Jr lost control and hit the barriers. The race was red-flagged and a recovery vehicle was sent out to remove the car, but several drivers passed the vehicle at high speed and in extremely poor visibility.
The nearest miss came when AlphaTauri driver Pierre Gasly narrowly avoided the recovery vehicle, and Gasly later made his anger known, pointing out that if he had lost control of his car and hit the recovery vehicle, he could have been killed.
Gasly's anger was also fueled by the fact that this was the same track on which his friend Jules Bianchi had been killed in 2014, when hitting a recovery vehicle in wet conditions.
There was widespread shock and anger in Formula One at the near miss and the FIA rightly launched an immediate investigation and sweeping changes to the use of recovery vehicles.
