Max Verstappen demonstrated his determination to grab every point available by persuading his team to let him go after the bonus point for fastest lap at the end of the Austrian Grand Prix.
He has now scored 91.6% of the points available this year. No driver has ever been more dominant nine rounds into a Formula 1 season.His 42nd grand prix win moved him ahead of Ayrton Senna in the all-time winners list. It was his fourth success in the Austrian Grand Prix, making him the event’s most successful driver (he also has one win in the Styrian Grand Prix at the same track).
Red Bull are now level with Lotus on four Austrian GP wins. Verstappen extended his sprint race record with his fourth win on Saturday, then on Sunday reached the rally of five consecutive grand prix wins for the second time in his career. That was his 86th podium, meaning he now has a trophy from half of the F1 grands prix he has contested, and his 10th in a row which puts him on the joint sixth-longest podium streak in history.
Verstappen’s 26th pole and 25th fastest lap put him level with Mika Hakkinen on the all-time lists of both, and now only seven drivers have more fastest laps than him.
Verstappen missed out on the weekend ‘grand slam’ by losing the lead after his first pit stop. His uninterrupted run of 248 at the front began when he passed Sergio Perez ten laps from the finish at the Miami GP and continued through the Monaco, Spanish and Canadian grands prix before reaching Austria.
Alberto Ascari and Senna are the only two drivers to have led more laps consecutively. Verstappen will have to continue leading every race until the Italian Grand Prix to have a chance of beating that.
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Despite not doing the grand slam, Verstappen still achieved the hat-trick of victory, pole and fastest lap for the seventh time, matching Ascari and Senna on that front. Since the 2019 reintroduction of points being awarded for achievements other than Sunday finishing position he has now claimed maximum points from a weekend 12 times, and four times already in 2023.
Red Bull have also broken Mercedes’ 2015 record of 371 points from the first nine rounds by six points, although 35 of those points have come courtesy of fastest laps and sprint races which was not part of the regulations eight years ago.
Charles Leclerc‘s second place was his 26th F1 podium, putting him level with Ronnie Peterson and Eddie Irvine, and Sergio Perez‘s third place meant he matched Jack Brabham’s career tally of 31 podiums.
Landmarks reached by others on the grid included Ferrari’s 800th podium result, Aston Martin surpassing the 300-point mark from less than three seasons of competition, and their driver Fernando Alonso becoming the first F1 driver to finish 300 grands prix.
Less enviable achievements went to Haas’s Kevin Magnussen, who has now been in F1 for 150 grands prix but not won a race, and McLaren’s Lando Norris who similarly is still without a win but has scored 450 points in his career as he claimed his best result of 2023 in fourth place.
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Alpine’s Esteban Ocon went into Sunday’s race having reached 120 grands prix without a pole, and left it having broken the record for the most driving penalties in a race.
Four track limits infringements incur a five-second penalty, and five infringements leads to a 10-second penalty. Although the regulations in the FIA’s major single-seater championships do not specify an escalation of penalties for further infringements, the precedent set in Formula 2 and which are the same options that are available to F1 stewards is following the time penalties there is then a drive-through penalty and after that a 10s stop-go penalty for continued offenders. That is converted into a 20s or 30s penalty respectively if it’s issued post-race, or a grid penalty for the next race if the driver has retired.
But the four Austrian GP stewards saved Ocon from being penalised 65s, which would have dropped him to 19th, as in the document listing the race’s track limits penalties they wrote that they had decided that after five infringements there would take a specific approach to handing out further penalties:
“A ‘reset’ has been allowed due to the excessive number of infringements. The counting of infringements restarts. After another four infringements, a five-second time penalty will apply; after five, a 10s time penalty. The stewards very strongly recommend that a solution be found to the track limits situation at this circuit.”
Williams go into their home race this weekend above last place in the constructors’ standings for only the second time in the last six seasons. They are five points clear of AlphaTauri at the bottom, while in 2021 they were ahead of Haas on dint of both teams having scored zero points and Williams having a higher best finish.
Have you spotted any other interesting stats and facts from the Austrian Grand Prix? Share them in the comments.
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2023 Austrian Grand Prix
- Mercedes left scratching heads by lack of performance at Austrian GP
- Verstappen’s determination to grab every point makes him a record-breaker
- Austrian GP track limits farce was avoidable like ‘IndyGate’ and Spa 2021 – Brown
- Alpine now “definitely beatable” for McLaren after upgrade – Brown
- Paddock Diary: 2023 Austrian Grand Prix
Ilanin
5th July 2023, 18:19
Jim Clark had scored 100% of the available points nine rounds into the 1963 season, since drivers were only able to retain points from six races in the rules used at the time and he had won the Belgian, Dutch, French, British, Italian and Mexican races.
KaIIe (@kaiie)
5th July 2023, 19:17
Converting laps led consecutively to kilometres spent in the lead (might be off by a bit, did not check the exact laps Verstappen took and lost the lead in Miami and Austria, respectively; but this is the ballpark)
Verstappen: 1016 km
Ascari: 2075 km
To beat Ascari’s record, you’d have to lead nearly 7 races from start to finish these days thanks to shorter race distances (300 km instead of 400 or so km). Next goal for Verstappen?
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
5th July 2023, 22:34
It’s really impressive by ascari, considering how unreliable those cars were.
Patrick (@anunaki)
6th July 2023, 8:10
he won 9 races in a row over the span of 2 seasons with that Ferrari 500 so that doesn’t look very unreliable
montreal95 (@montreal95)
6th July 2023, 19:48
@anunaki That’s the point. In his hands it was very reliable indeed, but it was not the same for his teammates. The driver made much more of a difference in those days with regards to reliability, not just speed. in the same way, Jim Clark was not just faster than all his teammates, but also he was suffering much less from reliability problems than they did.
F1 frog (@f1frog)
7th July 2023, 9:10
@kaiie this is, of course, because races were longer in Ascari’s day and also his laps led consecutively includes races at the Nurburgring Nordschleife and the old Spa-Francorchamps, making the distance led much longer than Verstappen’s which was made up of three very short tracks in Monaco, Catalunya and Montreal.
However, Ascari actually benefitted from the longer laps in this stat, because he didn’t actually lead all those kilometres consecutively. In the 1952 German Grand Prix, Ascari had to pit for oil on the penultimate lap of the Grand Prix and lost the lead to teammate Giuseppe Farina. However, with the laps being ten minutes long, Ascari was able to hunt down and pass Farina for the lead again on that lap without ever losing the lead over the line, thus retaining his consecutive laps led statistic, as well as his consecutive wins.
It is also worth noting, I think, that much like Verstappen lost his streak due to a competitor, Charles Leclerc, being on a different strategy, Ascari also only lost his laps led streak because, at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, Maserati had smaller fuel tanks and had to run a one-stop strategy, allowing Jose Froilan Gonzalez to draw away in the first stint with a lighter car before pitting, and dropping back behind Ascari who still won the race by a full minute. Had Gonzalez not been on this alternate strategy, Ascari would surely have led every lap in Monza, and increased his streak by 1260km (or 267 laps) as he also led every lap of the 1953 Argentine and Dutch Grands Prix. The streak ended only at the Belgian Grand Prix when Maserati finally seemed to find their form and Gonzalez and Fangio ran ahead of Ascari on merit at the start of the race before retiring, while at the following race at Reims, Mike Hawthorn won to end Ascari’s streak of races won, Ascari finishing fourth in a lacklustre race by his very high standards.
It was helped by the lack of opposition from other teams, but this was surely the most dominant period by one driver in Formula 1 history, and it was done with another former champion, Giuseppe Farina, in the second Ferrari. Alberto Ascari isn’t really given enough credit as one of the greatest racing drivers of all time.
Jere (@jerejj)
5th July 2023, 19:28
Coincidently, last season’s Austrian GP is still the most recent race won by a team based outside the UK/a team that hasn’t won the WCC since 2009.
Max Verstappen surpassed Nico Rosberg (144) for the most laps led in Austria.
He & Charles Leclerc have shared the Red Bull Ring front row three times.
The closest-ever Q1 with all drivers within a second.
Ironically, Nico Hulkenberg, Alexander Albon, & Lando Norris have all had more Q3 appearances this season than Sergio Perez.
Last season’s Emilia-Romagna GP was the most recent event where neither Mercedes driver reached Q3.
The first rain-affected sprint.
Red Bull Racing’s 800th podium finish.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
5th July 2023, 22:35
Wow, that q3 stat looks really bad on perez!
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
5th July 2023, 22:41
@jerejj
Are you including Styria in these statistics for Austria? Even so, I’m surprised Bottas hasn’t led more laps than this given he’s won twice and was in the lead pretty much the entire race in 2017 and 2020. Then if including styria, I’d certainly say he’s let over 144 laps, but then i suppose you are not including that.
Jere (@jerejj)
6th July 2023, 5:53
@thegianthogweed I merely saw this reference elsewhere & I’d think whoever mentioned that would’ve also considered the Styrian GPs. Nevertheless, he’s the stat leader.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
6th July 2023, 8:23
Well, if they are including both, Bottas having won two and having let the race for at least 70 laps in each, and led several others at Styria, he has certainly led over 144 laps.
SteveR (@stever)
5th July 2023, 22:48
800? Really? Red Bull entered F1 in 2005, so let’s say they’ve been around for 18 years, to be generous. If there were 24 races/year (which there aren’t) that would be 432 races. Red Bull would have had to put two cars in the top three for every race since they started to reach 800. Google says 248 podia.
MichaelN
5th July 2023, 23:13
No, it was Ferrari’s 800th podium.
Red Bull indeed has 248.
Jere (@jerejj)
6th July 2023, 5:54
@stever MichaelN
Whoever mentioned 800 when I saw that reference mixed up the teams.
EffWunFan (@cairnsfella)
6th July 2023, 8:54
@jerejj
Or perhaps whoever wrote the reference that you saw obtained the information from another reference by someone else who had mixed up the teams?
Jere (@jerejj)
6th July 2023, 11:19
@cairnsfella Also possible.
montreal95 (@montreal95)
6th July 2023, 19:53
@jerejj Ferrari scored their 800 podium not Red Bull
Also that stat of Perez vs Hulkenberg is a great find, and just mind boggling and inexcusable for Perez.
Jere (@jerejj)
7th July 2023, 5:29
@montreal95 In case you didn’t notice, I was already noted before & responded to that, so noting separately was redundant.
notagrumpyfan
5th July 2023, 23:02
Aka Spraint
CP
5th July 2023, 19:44
Has there ever been such a dominant car, and a mismatched pairing.
Verstappen is Premiership and Perez is barely Sunday League.
So boring to watch.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
5th July 2023, 22:51
Hamilton-bottas 2020 was pretty bad, apart from that there’s been way more dominant cars than this and way more mismatched pairings, but both things together is indeed difficult.
The ferrari 1961 was probably the most dominant car ever but had some fairly weak drivers, so there’s not enough team mate difference.
Mmm, I just looked on f1 metrics blog because I knew of an article I read in the past and the 1955 mercedes was able to win 71% of races and fangio scored 3x the points of his team mate, so that’s massive team mate domination but not enough car wise.
The 1952 ferrari won 7 out of 8 races, only not indianapolis where very few drivers participated and only 1 of the ferrari drivers but retired, and ascari won 6 of those 6 and didn’t take part in the one he didn’t win, so he was never beaten by a team mate, and if it weren’t for the “discard results rule) would have scored around or more than double the points of his 2 best team mates: farina and taruffi, now this looks like what you mentioned!
We also have the 2011 and 2013 red bull, where vettel won up to 13 races and webber struggled to win 1, however it wasn’t as dominant as this red bull, they lost a handful of races to other teams.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
5th July 2023, 22:52
ascari won 6 of those 7*
Axel
5th July 2023, 23:07
2002 Schumacher outscored Barichello 144 to 77, with Schumacher outscoring the entire continent of South America, which included the numbers 2 and 3 in the standings, outscoring every constructor apart from Ferrari and Williams and only ‘losing’ a race six times, which is the maximum amount of podiums anyone anyone apart from Barichello got that season while Schumacher turned into an alcoholic by finishing on the podium every race. So I think that should probably be on the list as well ;)
Mooa42
6th July 2023, 1:59
Seems unfair that Perez has matched Sir Jack Brabham’s number of podiums
montreal95 (@montreal95)
6th July 2023, 19:58
he’s done over twice the amount of races sir Jack did. Brabham had a podium in 1 out of 4 races in his career which is amazing. also the reliability was much worse. And finally, nearly half of Sir Jack’s podiums were wins, unlike Perez’s. so it’s not the same at all if you think about it a little.
Mayrton
6th July 2023, 9:58
I feel the mismatch makes it at least a bit more interesting than the Ham-Ros or Ham-Bot pairing in an even more dominating car back then. Now we at least don’t know who will be second on the podium.
The Tradesman
7th July 2023, 6:44
How could you possibly think it’s more interesting to see a race where the winning driver isn’t challenged? And I’m curious about the more dominant car system. What metric are you basing this on?
anonymous
5th July 2023, 20:22
His points include fastest laps so it should be 229/260, not 229/250, resulting in 88%.
F1 Stats Fan
5th July 2023, 20:46
Streak of no 1st time podium finisher
With no 1st time podium finisher at Austria the record for most race between 1st time podium finisher has been equaled with 41 races.
* Previous record streak is from Vettel’s 1st podium at Monza 2008 till Petrov’s first and only podium at Australia 2011.
* Current record streak is running since Russell’s podium at Spa 2021.
Given that current grid only has 6 drivers (Nico, Yuki, Guanyu, Oscar, Nyck & Logan) without a podium finish it is likely more races will be added to this streak. To break the record measured in days the streak of no new 1st time podium finisher must continue till past Saudi Arabia 2024 which would be a further 15 races.
Most races and points without a podium
Obviously Hulkenberg keeps extending his own negative record of most races and most points scored without a podium finish – currently 190 races and 530 points. Closest challenger is Adrian Sutil with 128 races and 124 points.
Podium streak from start of season
It is the 7th time in history and Max is 6th driver that finished on the podium in all of the first 9 races. Only once in history did a driver manage to extend that streak to the 10th race, that was Schumacher in 2002 when he finished on the podium in all of the 17 races.
Alonso in 2006, Lewis in 2007 & 2015, Vettel in 2011 and Rosberg in 2015 failed to get on the podium in the 10th race.
Most race wins in last x races – driver
Max also extended his own record of most wins in last 30 races from 21 to 22 wins.
He equaled the record of most wins in last 50 races now at 31 wins held jointly with Lewis and Schumacher.
If you look at wins in last 100 races Max with 38 is still trailing Schumacher (50 wins) and Lewis (55 wins), showing that in reality that the current period in which Max is dominate so far is only relative short.
Most race wins in last x races – team
If you look at teams wins for Red Bull you see similar but slightly less dominate results – again showing that compared to 6 years Ferrari and 8 years Mercedes the current 1,5 year of Red Bull domination is very short.:
Red Bull won 19 of last 20 races equaling Mercedes record.
Red Bull won 26 of last 30 races trailing Mercedes with 27 wins
Red Bull won 36 of last 50 races trailing Mercedes with 43 wins and Ferrari with 38 wins.
Red Bull won 43 of last 100 races trailing Mercedes with 75 wins, Ferrari with 63 and Red Bull themselves with 49 wins.
Symmetry in long win streaks interrupted
If Red Bull wins at Silverstone they have won 20 of the last 21 races with Mercedes disrupting the party at Brazil 2022 (Russell’s 1st win).
Mercedes also have won 20 of the last 21 races with Red Bull disrupting the party at Spain 2016 (Max’s 1st win).
paulgilb (@paulgilb)
5th July 2023, 22:38
4th year in a row that the Red Bull Ring has hosted 2 F1 races.
First time since Miami that somebody other than Verstappen led a lap, and the first time since Azerbaijan that a non-Red Bull led.
5th win and 8th podium for Verstappen at the Red Bull Ring – both the most of any circuit.
First circuit at which Leclerc has managed 4 podiums.
Verstappen has won as many races in the last 14 months as Raikkonen won in his 19 seasons of F1.
Norris has always finished in the top 7 at the Red Bull Ring.
Both of Leclerc’s podiums this year have come in Sprint weekends.
Red Bull and AlphaTauri are the only teams yet to have a mechanical DNF in 2023.
Thanks to statsf1 and the official F1 site for some of these.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
5th July 2023, 22:54
Wow, the verstappen-raikkonen stat is crazy!
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
5th July 2023, 22:56
About the main article, quite surprising that red bull is so dominant and leading the championship and alpha, the b team, is at the bottom.
Andy Bunting (@wildbiker)
6th July 2023, 3:11
Obviously We mustn’t discuss or remark about Max BARGING Checo off the track then?
..
6th July 2023, 6:32
or the other way around 300 meters before that moment?
MacLeod (@macleod)
6th July 2023, 13:59
@wildbiker you mean Checo pushing Max on the grass … Barging Checo off that is called racing by making your turn a bit bigger then your target is very classical when you are at the same length as your opponent your opponent can’t turn in.
Qeki (@qeki)
6th July 2023, 7:29
Moto GP is different but Giocamo Agostini won 56 consecutive races. (Yes they were 500cc and 350cc but still) 38 of them were 500cc wins in a row. There is some job to do with F1 drivers.
He also won 4 years in a row whenever he crossed the line. 60 races 56 wins and 4 retirements.
Sergey Martyn
6th July 2023, 11:58
Verstappen’s determination to grab every point makes him the worst teammate for poor Checo…
Señor Sjon
6th July 2023, 14:24
Perez has not featured in Q3 4 times in a row. He is sole record holder for RB now, previously sharing it with Coulthard.
Qeki (@qeki)
6th July 2023, 18:16
Both had a team mate who was their countries first double wc