Lewis Hamilton winning by one F1 measure this season as Max Verstappen has worst record

Despite all the doom and gloom, there is one area in which Lewis Hamilton has excelled so far this year – he does not have a single penalty point on his licence

Lewis Hamilton is certainly not having the debut season with Ferrari that he would have dreamed of when he put pen to paper on his deal to join the Scuderia. Save for an early-season victory in a sprint race at the Chinese Grand Prix, there has been little to write home about.

Hamilton heads into this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix sixth in the championship, having scored 109 points across the first 14 rounds of the year. His team-mate Charles Leclerc is one place ahead but with 42 points more than the seven-time Formula 1 champion.

Leclerc has also managed five Grand Prix podiums so far this year, and was unlucky to miss out on a sixth last time out in Budapest after qualifying on pole before suffering a worrying drop in performance mid-way through the race having held off the charging McLaren cars in the early stages.

In contrast, Hamilton has not made it to the top three in any Grand Prix so far, a trio of fourth-placed finishes in Imola, Austria and Silverstone his best results of the year. In Budapest, while Leclerc excelled in qualifying, Hamilton did not make it to Q3 and crossed the finish line a lowly 12th.

Despite all the doom and gloom, there is one area in which Hamilton has excelled so far this year – he has kept his nose clean admirably, to the point he does not have a single penalty point on his licence.

He is one of just five drivers on the grid who have not incurred the wrath of the stewards over the last 12 months. The others with completely clean licences are Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon, as well as rookies Isack Hadjar and Gabriel Bortoleto.

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At the other end of the scale, there are two drivers who are fairly close to triggering a race ban. The current rules dictate that any driver who amasses a dozen points within a 12-month period triggers an automatic suspension.

One of them is Max Verstappen who, with nine points on his licence, is the closest to a ban of everyone on the grid. At one point earlier this year, he had 11 and was one tiny mistake away from being forced to miss a race, but gained a little more breathing room after the Austrian Grand Prix when two of his points expired.

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Verstappen will have to be on his best behaviour as his current points will not begin to expire until the end of October. It is still possible that one incident could lead to a ban for the Dutchman, as the stewards have the power to hand out up to four penalty points for some of the more serious infractions drivers can make.

Oliver Bearman, on eight points, knows all about that having picked up four for ignoring red flags and crashing in the pit lane at Silverstone. That came after the British Haas driver had picked up two for another red flag infraction in Monaco, adding to the two he earned last November for causing a collision at the Brazilian Grand Prix.