With victory in Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix, Max Verstappen has now surpassed Sebastian Vettel’s previous record for the most wins achieved with Red Bull in Formula 1.
Vettel – who drove for Red Bull between 2009-14, winning four World Championships – racked up 38 wins for the Austrian outfit in his six-year stint before departing to Ferrari.
However, Verstappen led from lights to flag in Monte Carlo at the weekend to register the 39th victory of his career, propelling him one win clear of the number Vettel accumulated during his glory-laden spell with Red Bull.
Speaking after the race, Verstappen, who usurped Mark Webber’s tally for the most starts in Red Bull history midway through last year, professed he never envisaged he would achieve such success in the sport.
“If you have a good car for a while, you can break these kinds of numbers,” he said. “But yeah, it’s great.
“I mean, I would have never thought that I would be in this position in my career.
“When I grew up, I wanted to be a Formula 1 driver and winning these races is amazing. It’s better than I could have ever imagined, for sure.”
Monaco was something of a cursed track for Verstappen during his early F1 years: the Dutchman crashed out of the race on his debut appearance in 2015, endured two shunts across the weekend the following year and then was ruled out of qualifying in 2018 after smashing into a barrier in FP3.
However, Verstappen finally broke his Monaco drought in 2021, registering his second win of that year on his way to securing his maiden World Championship.
Having landed his first pole position in Monaco on Saturday after a scintillating run through the final sector on his last lap, Verstappen proceeded to notch his second win in the principality in style.
The 25-year-old managed to nurse a set of Medium tires through 55 laps until the rain arrived to dismiss the outside threat posed by Fernando Alonso before easing away comfortably once on the Intermediate rubber to win by a landslide margin of 27.9s.
“Yeah, it’s super nice to win it,” Verstappen added. “It is also super nice to win it, I think, in the way we did today, with the weather and everything, to stay calm and bring it home.
“And yeah, again, a lot of points for the team as well. So it’s great.”
While Verstappen seized an important victory, Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez could not recover from the qualifying crash that left him rooted to the back of the grid.
The Mexican, winner in Monaco a year ago, ended the past weekend pointless, leaving Verstappen with a healthy 39-point advantage in the Drivers’ standings and in the driving seat to claim a third successive championship.
Furthermore, Verstappen’s fourth win of 2023 has put him only two behind Ayrton Senna in the all-time list for race victories, with the Red Bull ace also closing rapidly on Alain Prost (51 wins) and Vettel (53 wins).
Since the technical regulations were overhauled at the beginning of last year the two-time title winner has triumphed in 19 of the 28 races to take place.
With the current rules cycle set to be in place until 2026 and Red Bull presently upholding a huge sporting advantage at the front of the F1 field, Verstappen could be poised to chase down Lewis Hamilton’s record wins tally of 103 before he opts to retire.
