Max Verstappen secured the Formula 1 2023 Drivers’ Championship after finishing second in Saturday’s Sprint Race at the Qatar Grand Prix.
The Dutchman only required three points to cement his status as a three-time title-winner but his latest title triumph was confirmed when team-mate Sergio Perez spun out midway through.
Verstappen’s third championship success has unquestionably been his most dominant, taking advantage of the all-conquering RB19 pioneered by technical genius Adrian Newey.
To date, Verstappen has accrued 13 race victories, 10 pole positions and has featured on the podium in all but one of the 16 rounds to acquire 407 points, 184 clear of Perez.
The 25-year-old accompanies Jack Brabham, Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda, Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna as a three-time F1 champion, leaving him only behind Michael Schumacher (7), Lewis Hamilton (7), Juan Manuel Fangio (5), Alain Prost (4) and Sebastian Vettel (4) in the record books.
Intriguingly, the four previous drivers to have won three successive titles have all gone on to make it four in a row the following season.
With Red Bull’s competitive advantage at the head of the field showing no signs of being eroded, Verstappen will enter 2024 as once again the overwhelming favourite to succeed.
The Red Bull ace began the campaign on the right note, surging to a victory in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix that set the trend for how the remainder of the year would go.
However, Verstappen was not entirely having things all his own way in the early stages of 2023.
A driveshaft issue in qualifying for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and an ill-timed Safety Car in Azerbaijan allowed Perez to scoop two victories, bringing him to within one point of Verstappen.
But sandwiched between the Mexican’s brace of victories, Verstappen ended his Australian hoodoo to triumph amid a chaotic encounter at Albert Park.
Meanwhile, the first cracks in Perez’s eventual forlorn title bid emerged as his qualifying ended rather prematurely in the gravel, ruling him out of the battle for victory.
Verstappen pinpointed his Baku defeat as a valuable turning point in the year, expressing that he discovered a breakthrough in the set-up of Red Bull’s 2023 machine.
And so it proved. From Miami and Monza nobody else stood on the top step of the podium rostrum, prompting Verstappen to set a new all-time Formula 1 record for the most consecutive wins by a driver in history, surpassing Sebastian Vettel’s previous run.
Perez was simply unable to live with his team-mate’s breathtaking consistency. A crash during the early stages of qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix saw him spiral into an alarming slump that he has never been able to recover from, culminating in the title heading Verstappen’s way with six races remaining.
Despite Verstappen’s imperious 10-race winning streak coming to an abrupt end in Singapore, the now three-time champion rebounded emphatically to blitz the opposition in Japan.
That Suzuka victory combined with Perez’s retirement put Verstappen on the brink of the title, one which was confirmed once Perez beached his Red Bull car in the gravel on Saturday evening at the Lusail International Circuit.
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