LOVE HIM OR HATE HIM, MAX VERSTAPPEN IS A RECORD-BREAKING MACHINE!
I had stopped watching Formula 1 quite a few years back, and it wasn’t because I didn’t have a team or driver I liked to support, it was more because I used to work weekends and I didn’t really have the time. Well, that and it was always a mission trying to find a place that was screening a race combined with a crowd I could stand. Halfway through 2022, I watched the Formula 1: Drive to Survive series on Netflix and that was a great way to get re-introduced to the sport, the teams and the current list of drivers. During that time on a media launch one of the journos I know was catching up on an F1 race on his smartphone, and when I asked about it I was given a full run-down of the F1 TV app and all the different features it had to offer. It was nothing short of brilliant, and at just R80 a month, it was well worth a subscription. This meant I could still do my usual weekend event coverage while being able to catch up on the races. When I was too busy, all I did was stay off social media so I didn’t see any race results and then I watched the race delayed live. Come the 2023 season, I only missed one race, and that was thanks to Eskom’s load-shedding mess and not having a charged device to use. For that race I saw the results before I watched, so I only watched the highlights. Being “new” to the sport, I still don’t have a favourite team or driver, I like a bunch of them. The Oracle Red Bull Racing team is among my favourites, not only because of the drivers and cars but because I love all the content the team creates between races. As it happened, the Red Bull crew has had one of the best Formula 1 seasons in the sport’s history.
While the team has done well thanks to both drivers, Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, it’s Max who cemented himself as a Formula 1 legend thanks to the impressive list of records broken and set. The season saw 22 races take place around the world, and Verstappen won 19 of those. As you can imagine, so many wins come with a bunch of records. Check out this list. There could be more, some aren’t officially tracked, but they still exist
1 - Most wins in a race season - 19 out of 22
2 - Most consecutive wins in a season - 10
3 - Most hat-tricks in a season - 6
4 - Most Driver Points in a season - 575 out of 620 points
5 - Most consecutive points scored in a season - 1,004
6 - Biggest point gap between 1st and 2nd in final standings - 290 points
7 - Highest percentage of points between first and second - 50.43 %
8 - Most races left before winning the title - 6
9 - Most podiums in a season - 21
10 - Highest percentage of wins in a season - 86.36%
11 - Highest percentage of points in a season - 92.7%
12 - Most wins from pole in a season - 12
13 - The longest streak of converting pole position into a win - 16
14 - Most consecutive top-two finishes - 14
15 - Most consecutive races as Championship leader - 39, since 2022 Spanish GP
16 - Most laps led in a season - 1,003 out of 1,325
17 - Most pitstops by the winning driver in a race - 6 at the Dutch GP
18 - Highest percentage of laps led in a season - 75.70%
19 - Highest percentage of laps completed in a season - 100 %
20 - The only driver ever to lead 1,000 laps in a season
21 - Most Sprint Race wins in a season - 4
22 - Highest percentage race finishes in a season - 100 %
23 - Only driver to win 3 times in 1 country.
Take a look at the YouTube video from the guys at Not Applicable F1 who have compiled a cool list of the records that have gone Max Verstappen's way during his stellar 2023 Formula 1 race season - which is pretty damn extensive and impressive: Every Record Max Verstappen Has Broken in 2023 | Not Applicable F1
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