Max Verstappen’s win No.41 matches Ayrton Senna

At this rate, the 2023 Formula 1 drivers’ world championship will be a walk in the park for Max Verstappen. The Dutch Red Bull driver has been faster than anyone else on the grid and is the outright favourite – significantly without competition – to claim a third consecutive F1 title.

The world champion won his sixth race of the season at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal on Sunday, extending his championship lead to 69 points. And we are only eight races, out of 22, into the season.

The victory at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve was No.41 for the 25-year-old, drawing level with the race wins of the late Brazilian icon Ayrton Senna, an enigmatic genius regarded as perhaps the greatest driver of all time.

Ardent Formula 1 fans will remember the 2000 Italian Grand Prix which Michael Schumacher won to tie Senna. The magnitude of the situation got to the Ferrari great, who broke down in the press conference with the world watching on television.

“Right from when I was a young kid karting, I was always dreaming about being a Formula 1 driver. I would have never imagined actually winning so many races, so to tie with Ayrton Senna is incredible and I feel really proud of that. Hopefully we will have plenty more wins in the future, I don’t want to stop now,” Verstappen said.

He now has only four drivers ahead of him – Lewis Hamilton (103 wins), Schumacher (91), Sebastian Vettel (53) and Alain Prost (51) -- with a realistic chance of being No.3 in the list given the speed differential between Red Bull and the other nine teams.

Verstappen’s team too achieved a landmark on Sunday. Red Bull became only the fifth team in the sport to win 100 grands prix, from 355 starts, after Ferrari (242), McLaren (183), Mercedes (125) and Williams (114). Red Bull’s victorious journey commenced in April 2009 when Vettel won the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai. They look good to displace Williams before the year ends.

Having won all eight races this year, Red Bull are on course to smash records. Verstappen was so dominant on Sunday that he now has led every lap for more than three races in a row and has been atop the standings for more than a year.

The win was also the 200th for Adrian Newey, the chief technical officer of Red Bull, who is credited with the development of the car. “It’s a landmark day and one for our history books, 100 victories for the team, 200 for Adrian and Max’s 41st putting him up there with Senna. I remember our first victory in China in 2009 and being happy that we’d won just one race, and here we are with 99 more. To get a century of victories is an incredible achievement, competing in 100 races is a feat in itself but winning 27% of all races we have entered is something truly to be proud of,” said team principal Christian Horner.

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