Max Verstappen dominated 2023, breaking many records, such as the most wins by a single driver in a season and the highest win percentage of a driver in a season, which enabled him to achieve a third world championship in the sport.
Verstappen's 2023 season started off well with a win at the season opener in Bahrain, as he took victory over teammate Sergio Perez by over 11 seconds and almost 40 seconds ahead of third-place Fernando Alonso. This gave us an insight into how the season ahead would unfold, with most of the following races following this pattern.
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Perez showed early signs of a potential title charge, however, with a win at the second round in Saudi Arabia and at round four in Baku, Azerbaijan. Although this would be the last time we would see a non-Verstappen win until the Singapore Grand Prix, this 10-race win streak was a new Formula 1 record, breaking Sebastian Vettel's record of nine.
Miami was where Verstappen's impressive streak started, and it was where he had one of his best drives of the season. Starting down in ninth place, Verstappen quickly threaded his way through the pack and ended up winning the race by over five seconds over second-place Perez.
Another great moment of the season for Verstappen was at Monaco, where Red Bull didn't seem to have the quickest car for the first time this season. In Q3, Alonso was on provisional pole, and as Verstappen was on his final lap of the session, he was down on Alonso by around two tenths in the first two sectors. Miraculously, Verstappen found the time in the tricky final sector of Monte-Carlo to put his Red Bull on pole and win the race the following day by 27 seconds.
Verstappen's Belgium drive was another example of his dominance this season, as the Dutchman was forced to start sixth on the grid for the race due to a grid penalty. Despite this setback, Verstappen claimed victory over second place by 22 seconds.
Not only did Verstappen smash records this season, his Red Bull team also did so, such as most wins by a constructor in a season with 21, highest win percentage of a team in a single season with a 95.4% win rate, and their constructors title win was the largest margin to second in history with a 451 point advantage.
With teams such as McLaren and Aston Martin gaining huge amounts of performance, could we see them or another team take it one step further and challenge the reigning champions?