Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen have been smashing Formula One records throughout the 2023 season and now the Dutch driver has statistically delivered the greatest ever season recorded in the history of the sport.
By winning 17 of the 20 rounds to date, Verstappen has a win rate of 85% breaking Albert Ascari’s 71 year old record when he scored 6 wins from 8 races in 1952.
Most wins and % wins in a season
Even were Max to not win the remaining two events he will still have a win rate of 77.3% and the highest it can increase to is 86.4%.
Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel did not come close to this kind of dominance during their multiple years of ruling the Formula One championship.
Verstappen is now even breaking his own world records and in 2022 when he won 15 of the Grand Prix he surpassed Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel’s all time best of 13 in a year.
In Mexico Max beats his own record from 2022 and it is now looking likely he will make the final win tally of 19 races from 22 Grand Prix.
Most consecutive wins in F1 ever
One of the more remarkable feats of Verstappen’s 2023 season was to claim the record for the most consecutive F1 wins ever by a driver. Sebastian Vettel previously clocked up wins in the last nine races of the 2013 season, Verstappen made it 10 this season.
His run began at the Miami Grand Prix and he matched the Vettel target at his home race in Zandvoort before taking the tenth win a week later in Monza. Lewis Hamilton’s best winning streak is just five races in a row.
The RB19 was not designed to be the quickest car over one lap, rather Adrian Newey built a car that would be the fastest under Grand Prix racing conditions. This has meant Max has not had it all his own way on Saturday (Friday at Sprint weekends) but has still taken 11 poles from 20 races.
Yet his conversion rate from pole to win is also unsurpassed. Not only has Max won all 11 races where he started on pole this season but this conversion rate began at the 2022 Dutch Grand Prix. Max now has 15 consecutive pole to win scores and the last time he failed to convert a pole to a win was in Austrian 2022 when Charles Leclerc beat him to the chequered flag.
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Triple Crown matched
The Grand Chelm is much prized amongst Formula One drivers and this is where they claim pole position, lead all the laps of the race and post the fastest lap aswell.
From Verstappen’s 11 poles he has achieved this five times this season. This equals Schumacher and Ascari’s record from 2002 and 1952.
Over the years the points allocation in Formula One has changed a number of times and now when including those available for the Sprint, it is the highest it has ever been.
Even so Max Verstappen has scored the most number of points ever in a Formula One season. His tally of 524 has blown away Lewis Hamilton’s previous record of 413 in 2019.
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Some felt the Schumacher years were boring in particular when he won the drivers’ championship with 6 races remaining back in 2002. By a quirk of fate, Verstappen claimed the 2023 title after the Sprint race in Qatar, which meant with the Grand Prix still to come, he equalled Schumacher’s record which had stood for 21 years.
One of the problems for Sergio Perez this season has been the gulf between his contribution to the team’s points haul and that of the Mexican’s team mate. Max currently has a 266 point lead over Checo who has scored less than this difference and at present his tally is just 258 points.
With just 52 points now available Verstappen is assured of breaking another Vettel record which saw the German hold a winning margin of 155 points over Fernando Alonso in second place back in 2013.
One of the most quirky F1 record was set bye Jenson Button back at the 2011 Canadian Grand Prix. In a race affected rain that lasted for 6 hours including the red flag periods, Button made six put stops and came from last to first to win a heavily rain affected race.
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F1 most quirky record
At the start of the Grand Prix Jenson took out his team mate Lewis Hamilton and being the only driver on slick tyres in the closing laps as the circuit dried, he overtook the race leader Sebastian Vettel on the final lap at turn 6.
In Zandvoort this year, the conditions alternated again between dry and wet and Max too made 6 pit stops, though he led the race from start to finish in a measured drive which lacked the drama of Button’s in 2011.
One final measure of Max Verstappen’s extreme dominance is seen in the fact he has been the F1 championship leader for 39 races now – a run which stretched back to May 2022. Charles Leclerc was leading the race in Barcelona when his turbo blew and a grateful Verstappen swept up and came home for the win.
The previous holder of this measure of dominance was Michael Schumacher who achieved this by being ahead for 37 consecutive races between the 2000 United States GP and the 2002 event in Japan.
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Records beyond Verstappen’s reach
One record Max will not claim this year is the most number of fastest laps in a calendar year. Both Schumacher an dKimi Raikkonen recorded 10 fastest laps in a year and Verstappen currently has just eight. Of course it is possible that Verstappen could equal this total, but he has interestingly not held a fastest lap for the previous 3 Grand Prix.
There are certain F1 records Max cannot yet hold and these are due to the time served nature of precious drivers. Lewis Hamilton has clocked up 103 wins but is now 38 years old. Verstappen just claimed his 52nd in Brazil but when we consider he is 13 years younger than the British driver, he needs just over four race wins a year until he reaches Hamilton’s age to beat this record.
And at present Mercedes and Hamilton don’t look as though they have a prayer of adding to the 103 or making it difficult for Max to keep on clocking up win after win each weekend.
