Championship leader Max Verstappen believes his Red Bull team have the potential to win all 22 races in 2023, but does not expect they will.
Red Bull have won all six rounds of the season so far, plus the single sprint race held in Azerbaijan, and have 249 points in the constructors’ championship – more than twice that of nearest rivals Aston Martin. Verstappen has won four times, while team mate Sergio Perez has won two grands prix and the Baku sprint race.Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, Verstappen said he feels Red Bull have the capability to take an unprecedented clean sweep of all 22 grand prix wins this season.
“Mow it looks like at the moment, I think we can,” he said. “But that’s very unlikely to happen.
“There are always things that go wrong or you have retirements or whatever. But purely on pace, I think at the moment it looks like it. But we will always get to tracks where maybe, it doesn’t work out exactly or whatever – bad luck in qualifying, you make your own mistakes.”
Despite some complaints about Red Bull’s dominance so far in the ground effect era introduced in 2022, Verstappen says it is nothing out of the ordinary for one team to be clearly ahead at the front of the field.
“About the dominance, I mean, we’ve always seen this in Formula 1 – it’s nothing new,” he said. “I think the longer you leave the regulations the same, the closer people will get. So maybe this is something we need to look at.
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“You have the odd year or maybe two years where there are two teams fighting – maybe potentially a third team. But overall, when you look back at the eighties, the nineties, the 2000s and the early 2010s, all the way ’til 2020, It’s been pure dominance of a certain team.”
George Russell agreed Red Bull could win every race this season, but is hopeful his Mercedes team can catch up to their rivals and pick up the pieces if they hit trouble.
“Like Max said, on pure pace, for sure they’ve got the potential,” said Russell. “But certain things can happen and I’d like to think we’ll be able to fight at some point and take advantage of some misfortune down the order. But it’s challenging.
“I agree with what Max said – there’s always been dominance in Formula 1 and I don’t know how we get to a place where you can have multiple drivers and teams fighting for the championship, because I think that would be the best for the sport, best for all of us. I think the fans would love it, but obviously you can’t always get what you dream for.”
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2023 Spanish Grand Prix
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Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
1st June 2023, 14:50
Good to have goals, given the dire competitive situation in the World Championships.
drmouse (@drmouse)
1st June 2023, 14:56
I still think there is a good chance RBR will win all the races this year. They have a very significant advantage over the rest of the field, and Perez has been on better form than he has in the past, too. Any races where Max has a problem, Perez should still bring home a win for the team.
That said, there is also a good chance that they’ll suffer a bad weekend or two. It’s definitely far from a certainty they’ll win them all, but I think “unlikely” is far too strong a term. I’d put the odds at around the 50/50 mark.
Jeroen van R.
1st June 2023, 15:27
Don’t forget that it is highly likely that during the season they will have to bring in additional power units, batteries and parts like that. So it is more then likely that RBR have to take some penalties, loose gridpositions and will not be able to fight for victory. Both drivers are likely to change engine parts (outside the allowed pool) at the same track/same time and both loose the ability to fight for a podium.
So I guess we have to stay tuned and see how it works out for RBR and Max. I agree that is not likely that they will take victory at every GP this year. It was more likely to do so in the early years when there was only six events scheduled and even back then it did not happen.
drmouse (@drmouse)
2nd June 2023, 7:39
Agreed, but we’ve already seen that Verstappen out of position, on most tracks, can still win.
We’ve also seen in previous seasons that it’s rare for a to team to change engine components in both cars at once.
All of these are possibilities, of course, but I’ve factored that onto my estimate of 50/50. IMHO there’s about a 50% chance that something will go wrong on at least one weekend and take the win away from RBR.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
2nd June 2023, 5:15
Judging by a few recent performances, I’m gonna say if verstappen is out or gets enough issues to not be able to come back (puncture on lap 1, sidepod damage like hungary 2021, etc.) there’s a chance to beat perez: take the monaco weekend and imagine verstappen crashing out in q1 instead, I think then alonso, leclerc and ocon had good chances to steal pole and maybe even more from perez.
drmouse (@drmouse)
2nd June 2023, 7:40
They have good chances, yes. But that’s not enough to make it “very unlikely” that RBR will win all the races.
Edvaldo
1st June 2023, 15:05
Things can happen and he kinda lucked out the last time even while dominating, so maybe next time they can be caught out sleeping, who knows.
RandomMallard
1st June 2023, 16:36
This feels very much like the Mercedes era again. I remember when they won all of the first 8 races in 2019 people were asking similar questions, including 5 one-twos in a row or something, but it just takes one bad race, or one error, and suddenly the stars align for the competition. Or, there are some tracks where a rival’s car is just inherently faster.