Laurence Edmondson wonders if Sergio Perez can lead teammate Max Verstappen to the championship standings. (1:27)
Red Bull’s unbeaten start this year has led to the initial hypothesis that the team could be the first to record an unbeaten Formula 1 season.
But is it feasible in a 22-race season? Only at natural speed, Max Verstappen thinks so.
“When you look realistically at the speed of the car, yes [it’s possible],” he said ahead of Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix, where he could finish fifth all-time by equalling Ayrton Senna’s 41 wins.
Examples of very best in the game are rare. The mythical Miami Dolphins of 1972 occupy a special place in NFL culture for their best season, while the “Invincibles” of Arsenal of the 2002/03 season are the only team that remains unbeaten in a Premier League season. Indeed, Red Bull would identify itself in a similar venture if it did the same this year, but the team downplayed any suggestion of the feat.
Red Bull has won 17 of the last 18 races, with George Russell’s victory for Mercedes at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix in November failing in this race. To put its record in American sporting terms, Red Bull has a 24-5 record since then. the beginning of 2022.
The margins of Red Bull’s seven wins this year have been remarkable. On all occasions, he had at least 20 seconds in his hand.
Non-Red Bull car deviation:
Bahrain Grand Prix – 38. 637 seconds
Saudi Arabian Grand Prix – 20. 728 seconds
Australian Grand Prix – 0. 179 seconds (race finished with Safety Car training drivers)
Azerbaijan Grand Prix – 21. 217 seconds
Miami Grand Prix – 26. 305 seconds
Monaco Grand Prix – 27. 921 seconds
Spanish Grand Prix – 24. 090 seconds
Verstappen would probably have won through an equally comfortable margin in Australia, however, he lost a smart lead due to a red flag overcome. This meant a prevention of the race and a restart from the grid. A pile of several cars caused the occasional red flag. The race ended with the cars driving at a slower speed in the unique record of Verstappen, who followed the protection car.
To simplify those holes, Red Bull had or was about to have a hole so big that it could face its leading car once it returned at the end of the race and still be in front. It shows how Red Bull’s rivals must succeed. about an impediment before they are sure they can challenge the world champions at a breakneck pace.
Mercedes felt it had made a breakthrough with its new update at the Spanish Grand Prix, but was still comfortably second. Toto Wolff told Sky Sports he felt Lewis Hamilton’s 24 seconds of Verstappen would have been closer to 15 or 16 had he not softened in the end, however the team is obviously still far away and heading to Canada and Austria in anticipation of a tougher race.
Aston Martin, the wonderful package of 2023 so far, and Ferrari are also hoping to close the hole as the year progresses. Rivals hope Red Bull’s wind tunnel penalty, a punishment for breaching the 2021 budget cap, will hurt their car’s progression later this year. , the final results of that punishment remain to be seen.
Despite Red Bull’s apparent advantage, after a look at F1’s history, the answer will have to be: a lot.
The closest team, the iconic McLaren MP4-4 of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost in 1988, scored 15 wins out of 16, totalling 93. 8% of the wins that year. Their only defeat came here when Gerhard Berger won an emotional victory. for Ferrari at the Italian Grand Prix, 3 weeks after the death of team founder Enzo Ferrari. But it may have been the best season without problems. Senna led this race until he passed a laggard at the first corner of the penultimate lap. , giving Berger and Michele Alborteto a double for the Italian team.
Verstappen himself under pressure ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix: “We can, but it’s very unrealistic. There are things that go wrong in a season that is rarely out of your control. I don’t think that’s possible. “
“I think there was only one year where McLaren was close to that, it was a race. And fewer races than now. “
From the Mercedes dynasty that preceded this dominant Red Bull team, the closest to 19 of 21 wins (90%) in 2016. Looking back, an extraordinarily close season without defeats for Mercedes. Both defeats were at the hands of Red Bull – Verstappen claimed his first F1 win in Spain when Hamilton and Rosberg collided and retired from the race, while Daniel Ricciardo won in Malaysia after Hamilton’s engine failed despite having a clever lead.
Mercedes took 16 of 19 wins (84%) in 2014 and 2015 and won 8 in a row to open the 2019 season, a feat Red Bull will fit if it finishes first at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Going further back, in the dominant years of Michael Schumacher, Ferrari’s most productive record was 15 wins out of 17 in 2002.
There is a saying in motorsport: to finish first, you have to finish first.
Even the fastest cars are not guaranteed to finish a race, for several reasons. The apparent maximum is the car that breaks the grand prix.
The car’s unreliability was a factor for Red Bull at the start of 2022, as Ferrari won two of the first three races, but the team temporarily resolved those issues and walked away with the championship from there. Part of what makes this Red Bull team so impressive at the moment is its solidity from a car reliability point of view, although Verstappen ran into a driveshaft failure in qualifying for this year’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
The other thing preventing a fast car from completing the race is what Senna experienced at Monza, a collision with another car. Verstappen experienced the same, squandering a win probably at the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix when he collided with Esteban Ocon. Verstappen and Hamilton also clashed fighting for the lead 3 times in their incredible war for the name in 2021.
Between 2014 and 2016, Hamilton’s bitter rivalry with teammate Rosberg at Mercedes opened the door for other groups to win, but we have yet to see an incident between Verstappen and teammate Sergio Perez and the dynamic is very different. Perez has rarely had the opportunity to pass wheel to wheel with Verstappen, so it proves a less likely end result in 2023.
Anyway, the consensus in the paddock is that Red Bull is enough at the moment to beat them all. It remains to be seen if the team’s luck is Array.