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In Formula 1, even if a driver is placed in a fine position on Saturday, things can go awfully wrong, really quickly, on Sunday, and vice versa. Sometimes you ride the luck and other times rage against the dying light. Fortuitous circumstances apart, the driver still has to make it count to make a recovery and haul back some points.
All the drivers can go fast, but that's the difference; drivers who can go fast and drivers who can race.
In general, recovery drives from the top 3 teams are a bit less impressive because of the sheer gulf in speed between them and the rest. However, each of Hamilton's and Max's two drives has more than just speed blitzing through the field. They showed immense race craft and gradually saw the race come to them.
2018 saw a lot of comeback drives. Here's a list of the top 5 with only 3 drivers - Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Max Verstappen taking up the slots.
#5 Lewis Hamilton in Britain
The British Grand Prix had the title fight tantalizingly poised. Lewis Hamilton recovered from 19th as he plummeted way down the field after getting tangled with Kimi Raikkonen on the first lap. Hamilton's race was salvaged by a superb recovery drive full of thrilling overtaking moves.
A couple of Safety Car periods helped the defending champion secure second place and 18 points. He drove brilliantly to romp back through the field. Not only did he drive with speed, his overtaking was precise.
He amazingly minimised the loss of points to Sebastian Vettel to the minimum of 7 points. With the title battle still on a knife's edge, it was the optimum he could have hoped - and something that he duly delivered.
#4 Max Verstappen in Russia
Red Bull were always going to struggle to be quick at the Sochi Autodrom circuit, which makes this performance particularly good. Both Red Bull drivers opted to start at the back of the grid so that they could take new engines.
From 19th, Verstappen was quickly up to 13th by the end of the first lap and continued to wade through the cars ahead at an astonishing rate. Within 8 laps he was fifth and just 19 seconds off the lead!
Running longer than anyone else before the pit stop, he leapt into the lead as the front runners stopped before him. He switched to the ultra-softs for the last 10 laps, when the tyres had nothing left in them.
He smartly cruised behind Raikkonen to pocket a very valuable 10 points from the back of the grid and saving the engine. Immediately after Russia, Red Bull unlocked more potential in their car and Verstappen benefitted from a new engine to notch a win in Mexico.
#3 Lewis Hamilton in Germany
This is is the only race win on the list and it came against the run of play. Hamilton started a very disappointing 14th in Germany, following a mechanical failure in qualifying.
Vettel was in pole position to extend his lead, but Hamilton scythed his way back through the field, and then took advantage of a dramatic rain-hit conclusion which involved his championship rival crashing out from the lead as he sealed a famous win.
He was helped with the safety car and preferential race strategy by the Mercedes team, having decided to back him to the title. However, no victory from so far down the grid should be dismissed even if the race leader (Sebastian Vettel) crashed out.
What made the win especially sweet for Hamilton was the booing he received from a partisan German crowd the previous day.
#2 Max Verstappen in USA
The US Grand Prix was quite easily one of the best races of the season and Max Verstappen's drive from 18th to the second step of the podium did play a part in spicing up the event. The top 3 of Kimi Raikkonen, Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton were separated by under 4 seconds and were in a single shot as they crossed the line.
Verstappen's charge through the field and eventual overtake of Hamilton had him on the verge of nabbing Kimi Raikkonen's win for Ferrari. Overtakes, undercuts, wheel-to-wheel racing - this drive had everything.
Had there been a couple of laps more, the win was most definitely his to have. Unlike Hamilton's drive that was aided by safety cars, he made this quantum jump in positions because of his stellar and long stint on the super softs.
#1 Fernando Alonso in Baku
The top comeback drive has to go to the Spaniard Fernando Alonso, for his sheer doggedness of dragging a double punctured McLaren through the long straights of Baku back into the pit on 2 wheels. A first lap incident like that would have had almost every driver throw in the towel.
Alonso had even more of a reason, having an underpowered, underdeveloped and underperforming car that would suffer on a power dependent street circuit. The drive back to the pit lane is itself a comeback, but then to wrestle it to seventh was doubling down. It was sheer determination from the double world champion - now a specialist in making cars finish in positions they have no business finishing in.
The safety cars helped his quest, but it was a display that defied many in the paddock as he was also driving with a damaged floor. It was an unbelievable drive, overachieving in inferior machinery. That makes Alonso's drive at Azerbaijan a worthy comeback drive of the year.
