So farewell, then, to the Red Bull RB19.
After propelling the Red Bull team, Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez to heights that no one in F1 had reached in the 2023 season, the greatest Grand Prix car in history will never again be driven in anger.
To pay tribute to the RB19 – and mark the unprecedented success of Red Bull and Verstappen in 2023 – here are 19 incredible stats from the team’s historic season…
How do you get started?
Of the 66 races since the start of her maiden name campaign in 2021, Verstappen won 44.
You know? That number. The Lewis number.
It’s ironic, some say, but Max may not be very interested in this specific statistic.
After taking the 44th victory of his F1 career in Hungary, Verstappen revealed he was eager to distance himself from that number – the Lewis number – as soon as possible.
“I hope I don’t stay at 44, that would be terrible! I want to get to forty-five quickly,” he said.
After a good start, let’s review some of the most obvious ones of 2023.
The Red Bull RB19 is now the most successful car in history, having won just one of the 22 races; its longer model length than the 1988 McLaren MP4/4 (16 races) gives it an edge.
Singapore was the only race that didn’t go the way of Red Bull, with victory going to Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz after Verstappen and Perez crashed out in Q2.
Red Bull also came within a point of drawing a blank in sprint racing, with their defeat coming in Qatar, where McLaren’s Oscar Piastri held Verstappen at bay.
To underline the point, the RB19 also has the greatest win percentage for any car in F1 history.
Its final score of 95. 4% exceeds the 1988 MP4/4 score by 1. 6%.
And by our calculations, that means Sainz’s win in Singapore is worth 4. 6 percent.
When Verstappen set a new record of 15 wins in a season in 2022, the ultimate idea – he hoped – would remain intact for a while.
Yet with that number achieved in the first year of a new rules cycle, there was always a distinct possibility that he and Red Bull would find even more in season two of the ground effect cars.
But 19 of 22 races? It’s a whole new point of raunchy, and Max is part of it.
“It’ll be very hard to have another season like this, we know that,” he said after climbing out of the car for the final time in Abu Dhabi.
Here we locate the core of Verstappen’s third season, the unprecedented run that has only accelerated his inevitable rise to greatness.
A decade after Red Bull took nine straight wins under Sebastian Vettel, the team (its squad is largely the same as it was in 2013) achieved a better one with Verstappen in a four-month golden race from Miami to Monza.
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Interestingly, Max started from pole position only six times in this record run after being caught out by a red flag in Miami, pipped by Hamilton in Hungary, incurring a grid penalty at Spa and filing behind Sainz’s Ferrari at Monza.
However, even starting in order, the way he walked through the countryside was inevitable.
And is it possible that this record will be broken soon?Finishing 2023 with seven wins, Max would achieve his own total with three consecutive wins at the start of 2024. . .
Naturally, Verstappen’s victory for 2023 is also off the scale.
His final figure of 86. 4% represents an 18. 2% increase over his 2022 winning percentage.
If there is a race on somewhere, no matter what form it takes, it is a race worth winning.
With the number of sprint races on the calendar doubling to six in 2023, it was likely that this record would fall this year.
Verstappen has won 4 (Austria, Belgium, USA, Brazil) in total, with Pérez and Piastri triumphing in Azerbaijan and Qatar respectively.
If only it wasn’t for Singapore…
Fifth place at Marina Bay is Verstappen’s only flaw of the season, with Max completing the top two in the other 21 races.
That’s the box that wasn’t ticked in 2022, when Red Bull was frustrated that Perez missed out on Charles Leclerc’s second.
This, too, has been in doubt for a long season this season, but Perez’s third-place finish in Las Vegas helped overtake Hamilton in the fight for second place, ending the season 51 points ahead of the Mercedes driver.
There’s a doubt. . .
The RB19 equalled Ferrari’s total of 30 podiums in 2004, with Verstappen taking 21 and Perez nine.
This is the maximum podium for a championship car since the last pre-pandemic season in 2019, when Mercedes recorded 32 in total.
The record belongs to the Mercedes W07 from 2016, when Hamilton and Nico Rosberg achieved 33 podiums between them.
Never again let Verstappen have you believe that he cares nothing for statistics.
His radio message to Red Bull to prioritise Perez’s pit prevention in Abu Dhabi let him know he was reaching the thousand-lap benchmark, allowing him to pit and return without wasting the lead.
He ended the season with 1,003 laps led, obliterating Vettel’s record of 739 from 2011.
Verstappen’s 1,003 laps in the lead also allowed him to go down in history with the percentage of laps led in a season.
Max’s 75. 7 beat Jim Clark’s record of 71. 4 from 1963.
It would possibly be surprising if Verstappen has only managed 12 pole positions in 2023, with Pérez, Hamilton, Sainz and Leclerc leading the field from the start line.
Whenever Verstappen started from pole though, it was a forgone conclusion.
His 12 wins from pole to flag set a new record for maximum wins from pole in a season.
And Verstappen’s ability to win from pole position isn’t a new habit either.
He has a record 16 consecutive wins from pole since the 2022 Dutch Grand Prix.
If you’re still not convinced that we all live in the era of Max Verstappen, check this out.
Verstappen has now spent a record 39 consecutive races at the top of the drivers’ standings, with no change at the top since the Spanish Grand Prix in May 2022.
Verstappen has been in trouble in the last 41 races since retiring from the third race of the 2022 season in Australia.
The adventure includes, fittingly, 33 wins, four second places and a 3rd place (Monaco 2022).
His worst result in that time is seventh (Silverstone and Singapore 2022).
It might come as a surprise, but Verstappen has set a new record for the most pit stops with the winning driver in a single race in 2023.
No surprise that the race in question was the frantic dry-wet-dry-wet race at Zandvoort, where Verstappen pitted four times – not including red flag tyre changes – en route to winning his home grand prix for the third year in succession.
Success comes at a price.
Verstappen’s huge success rate in a season with the longest calendar in F1 history led to problems overall with 575, 290 more than Perez and 341 ahead of third-placed Hamilton.
With the FIA entry fees based on the points scored in the previous season, by our calculations Verstappen will have to pay €1,217,900 to defend his title in 2024 – an increase of 26.3 per cent on his 2023 fee.
Glory! But also pain.
Turns out Perez’s tally of only nine podiums in the greatest F1 car ever has done Red Bull some good after all.
The team’s total of 860 problems in 2023 blew up Mercedes’ previous benchmark of 765 from 2016, and Perez’s struggles saved Red Bull from having to make an even bigger payout to return in 2024.
Recent estimates that Red Bull has to pay $7,445,817 to protect its title.
Read next: Revealed: The F1 2023 World Championship standings without Red Bull