Was 2023 record-breaking, or a broken record?
Verstappen did rack up a record ten consecutive race wins from Miami to Italy, which beat Sebastian Vettel’s previous record of nine set in 2013. A dozen of Verstappen’s victories came from pole, beating Nigel Mansell and Vettel’s benchmark of nine in 1992 and 2011 respectively. Six hat-tricks of pole, race win and fastest lap in Spain, Austria, Britain, Japan, Qatar and Abu Dhabi put Verstappen one clear of both Ascari (1952) and Schumacher (2004) in the all-time list.
This is genuinely sporting history in the making. Some of the records broken this year have been in existence since almost the start of Formula 1 itself. We really should feel privileged to be witnessing this in real time every weekend, rather than yawning and proclaiming it to be dull and predictable. But by the time we reached the final races of 2023, even the celebrations on the Red Bull pit wall had taken on a similarly exhausted feel to them: when even the winners give an impression of ennui about the outcome, there has to be a concern about how long such a state can be allowed to continue before it does genuine, lasting damage to the sport's popularity.
©RedBull
But what to do about a problem like Max? Is it for F1 to step in and tinker with the rules again to level the playing field (not for the first time)? Or is it down to rival teams to finally crack the Red Bull Code in order to unlock the cipher of Formula 1's Holy Grail? Just why is it that Adrian Newey alone has unravelled the secret of modern F1, especially when the latest regulations were explicitly designed to make things so much closer and more competitive? And how can Verstappen really be twice as good as all the other best drivers in the world? It makes little sense.
It's not just this year's dominance by Red Bull that is the problem, it's the scale of that domination which exceeds anything we've seen in the past, together with the question of how long it will take any other team and driver on the grid to cut such a daunting gap and allow things to change. Maybe if there was a clear light at the end of the tunnel the current situation would be easier to take. Without it there's every chance that the patience of powers that be will snap and we'll move into a phase of "something must be done". In F1, that's rarely a good thing.
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