ZANDVOORT, Netherlands — Max Verstappen is inevitable. After he overcome various obstacles at the Dutch Grand Prix to claim a record-tying ninth straight win, you’d be forgiven for thinking he might never finish anywhere but first again.
It’s not just a one-off streak either. Zandvoort was an 11th win from 13 races this year and a 26th from 35 since the start of 2022. Verstappen is a freight train showing no signs of slowing down. Scariest of all for his rivals is that Verstappen has another nine races — and three sprint events — left to win this year.
Even in an event as chaotic as Zandvoort’s on Sunday, one that featured heavy rain at the beginning and the end and a restart six laps from the finish, the Dutchman still crossed the line with a comfortable 3.744 second margin over Fernando Alonso.
Capping it all was that Verstappen tied Sebastian Vettel’s 2013 run at his home event, which exists solely because of his rise to superstardom. F1 returned to the seaside resort town’s circuit in 2021, Verstappen’s first championship season.
“It was probably one of the more difficult races to win, but yeah, nine in a row is something I never even thought about,” he said on Sunday in his trademark matter-of-fact way.
“Very happy with that, but I’m in general very happy to win here in front of my home crowd.”
Verstappen is on course to win the championship at some point in September or October, most likely the latter. His current trajectory will probably see him wrap it up at the Qatar Grand Prix, when there would still be five events in the season left to run.
Verstappen and Red Bull have replaced Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes as the dominant force in Formula One and, as was also the case with the former world champions, will face critics and skeptics who claim it is only down to having the fastest car. Anyone who has followed Verstappen since his debut in 2015 will know he’s always felt like a generational talent and the run we are witnessing only underlines that.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner thinks we are seeing something special.
“I think that Max is in a period of his career where he’s simply untouchable,” Horner said on Sunday evening. “I don’t think there’s any driver on the grid that would be able to achieve what he’s been doing in that car.”
In Sunday’s news conference for the top three finishers, Verstappen pointed out that having the fastest car does not mean an automatic win.
“Even if you have the best car, and I think there have been more dominant cars in the past than what we have at the moment, and they haven’t been able to do so, to win nine in a row, whatever, the consecutive wins we have as a team.
“So it is hard, and especially like today, it’s easy to make a wrong call or even drop it yourself in the gravel or whatever. It’s never that straightforward, unfortunately.”
Some look at the way Verstappen carries himself when he’s not in the race car and believe he simply does not feel the pressure associated with being the star performer of motor racing’s premier category. Some of the more rash outbursts of his younger career are gone and replaced, more often than not, with an unbreakable calm.
Asked if he believed Verstappen felt pressure, Horner said: “Of course, you’d be a robot not to, and you can see in his face.
“There were 100,000 Dutch men and women singing the Dutch national anthem. That’s a big moment for any national driver. He’s got the royal family here, coming to see him, but just before he steps in that car, he’s got so much expectation. And you have to feel that. It must be a huge relief for him when he leaves the circuit tonight that he’s ticked that box.”
Red Bull is still on for an unbeaten season, something never achieved in F1 before. Teammate Sergio Perez won two of the first four races but has struggled in Verstappen’s shadow since he was caught and passed by the Dutch driver for victory at the Miami Grand Prix in May.
Horner said Perez’s struggles highlight just how high a level Verstappen has been performing at this year.
“Being his teammate is probably, in some respects, the most unenviable job to have because the barometer is so high,” Horner said.
“Checo’s pace actually in the race was strong again today. We saw drivers miss the cut completely [in qualifying], not even make Q3 when you were expecting them to. Yeah, it’s very, very difficult. What we’re witnessing at the moment is a driver who is generational.
“If you look at the previous races, in Bahrain he was, in the first race, already in a commanding position. He then had a driveshaft failure in Saudi in qualifying. His recovery through the field was pretty impressive there. So there’s been… he’s been in incredible form for about the past three years I think.”
Verstappen can make the straight wins record his own in seven days, at the Italian Grand Prix on Sep. 3.
Source: www.espn.com