Max Verstappen achieved something nobody else has ever achieved in Formula 1 last weekend with his Dutch Grand Prix victory, becoming the first driver to go unbeaten in their first three races on home soil.
Although seven other drivers have won their home race three or more times, none have taken victories in each of their first three events in front of their home crowd.As usual, Verstappen had the longest list of stats to brag about at Zandvoort, taking his 46th grand prix win, 90th podium and 28th pole. It was the 23rd time he has converted pole to victory.
Within the context of this season, that was the Red Bull driver’s 11th victory, with only three instances of drivers winning more times in a season, and his eighth win from pole which means he is one way from matching the record for how many times that has been achieved in a year. As was widely noted, this was his ninth win on the trot, meaning he now jointly holds the record for the longest uninterrupted victory run with Alberto Ascari and Sebastian Vettel.
It was the 10th grand prix in a row that Verstappen has led, a new personal best for him, and 14th successive podium appearance. Having gone unbeaten at Zandvoort over the last three years it means the last time somebody else won the Dutch Grand Prix was Niki Lauda in 1985.
Verstappen may still only be 25 years old, but he’s now on the joint sixth longest run of consecutive starts in F1 history, matching Fernando Alonso by contesting his 176th race in a row last weekend.
Alonso had lots to smile about on Sunday too, clocking up his 105th podium finish – 40 of which are now second places – and his 24th fastest lap. That put the Aston Martin driver level with Lauda in tenth in the all-time table for fastest laps, and having recently turned 42 it also made him the tenth oldest driver to ever take a fastest lap.
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His first fastest lap was claimed over 20 years ago – a record – and he had a wait of 2,220 days from getting his 23rd to getting his 24th.
Sergio Perez would have made it two Red Bulls on the podium if not for the penalty dropping him to fourth, meaning Alonso now has as many podiums as he does this year. If Perez fails to finish in the top three at Monza this weekend, he will have spent as many grands prix off the podium as on it in 2023. Verstappen now leads him by 138 points at the top of the standings, which is the biggest such margin a driver has ever held after 13 rounds of a season.
Carlos Sainz Jnr’s fifth place means he has now gone 14 grands prix without a podium, which is the longest drought for a Ferrari driver since team mate Charles Leclerc went 21 races without finishing higher than fourth over 2020 and ‘21.
Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton became the outright third most experienced F1 driver of all time by making his 323rd start, and went on to finish sixth.
Lando Norris, who was just 0.023 seconds behind Hamilton at the chequered flag, has now scored more than 500 points in F1 but has still not won. Haas’s Nico Hulkenberg holds the record for points without a win, but Norris is now only 27 behind his career tally. It’s a record neither will want to be fighting over the rest of this season, while also trying to score as many points as possible in cars currently not in contention for wins.
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Williams had an excellent qualifying session, with Alexander Albon matching his career-best starting position of fourth and rookie team mate Logan Sargeant making it to Q3 for the first time. Unfortunately the latter then crashed, and did so again in the race, meaning he is still the only full-time driver yet to score a point this year.
By making the start he became the 10th New Zealander to race in F1, four-and-a-half years since Brendon Hartley’s last start with the same team, then called Toro Rosso. It was a comparatively short wait for fans in New Zealand given Hartley had ended a wait of over 33-and-a-third years since Mike Thackwell’s last F1 start in 1984.
Although his team mate Hamilton finished sixth, George Russell’s 17th place meant Mercedes had their lowest-scoring weekend since the 2022 Singapore Grand Prix when they collected only two points.
Have you spotted any other interesting stats and facts from the Dutch Grand Prix? Share them in the comments.
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2023 Dutch Grand Prix
- Azerbaijan GP defeat was key to record-equalling run of wins – Verstappen
- “Too early to say” if podium signals return to form for Aston Martin – Alonso
- Verstappen makes history with unbeaten hat-track in first home races
- Perez is ‘doing his job and will be our driver in 2024’, Horner insists
- Ferrari had the “sixth or seventh fastest car” at Zandvoort – Sainz
Jimmy Cliff
30th August 2023, 12:12
Alonso on podium when winning streak records are matched/broken:
• Hungarian 2004 when Schumacher matched Ascari 7 race win streak
• Brazilian 2013 when Vettel set the current record streak of 9 race wins
• Dutch 2023 when Verstappen matched Vettel record streak of 9 race wins
Max extended his 13 race streak without being overtaken on track (lap 1 overtakes and backmarkers unlapping are excluded).
Max equalled Schumacher record of winning 12 consecutive races that he started from pole position, last pole that Max didn’t convert to a win was Austria 2022.
With 9 races left this season, Max is 1 win from pole away of equalling Mansell (1992) & Vettel (2011) with 9 wins from pole in a single season. Currently he has 8, ranked 3rd with Schumacher (2004), Vettel (2013) and Hamilton (2017 & 2020)
Max is the only driver with multiple podiums at Zandvoort since it returned in 2021, 2nd/3rd is shared across 6 drivers.
Max and Stroll are the only 2 drivers to start and finish in same position in all of their Zandvoort F1 races.
Alonso FLAP was the first since 2017 Hungarian race, the 2nd longest gap in history behind Fisichella’s almost 8 years between FLAP.
Alonso did break the record for longest gap between 1st and latest podium, now set at 20y5m4d (=7,462 days), breaking Schumacher record (7,399 days).
The 2023 Dutch race saw a massive 186 overtakes breaking the previous record of 170 in the 2016 China race. Poor Logan Sergeant was the only driver not to record an overtake.
Lap 3 had 63 overtakes breaking the famous wet 2nd of the 2007 European race at the Nurburgring.
It also saw the most pitstops in a race with 89, beating Hungary 2011 race that had 88 pitstops.
Max equals Button’s record of 6 pitstops and still taking the win, both had 1 “pit stop” that wasn’t really a pit stop. Button had a drive through penalty and Max a red flag situation.
It has been 2 years and 45 races since we last seen a F1 driver score his first podium, Russell scored his maiden podium at Spa in 2021.
Max is now 3rd in most races with a single constructor, Max has 153 starts with Red Bull. Schumacher is 2nd with 181 and Lewis is 1st with 213.
Unicron (@unicron2002)
31st August 2023, 12:38
Great stats. I’ve been trying to think of which seasons 8 years apart that Fisichella got his fastest laps in. 1997 (Jordan) and 2005 (Renault), perhaps?
Jimmy Cliff
31st August 2023, 13:48
Well you have a very good memory or ability to guess, the info is all available at StatsF1.
Fisichella gap of almost 8 years runs from Spain 1997 (Jordan with Peugeot engine) to Spain 2005 (Renault with Renault engine). If you look at the gap in terms of # of races than Fisichella gap is 132 while Alonso’s gap is 124 races.
Jere (@jerejj)
30th August 2023, 12:24
Max also became the first driver since Jim Clark in 1965 to win three consecutive Dutch GPs.
He also achieved three consecutive Dutch GP pole positions as the first driver.
For the second time in three Dutch GPs since Zandvoort’s return, a regular driver got substituted for Saturday & Sunday runnings.
Logan Sargeant became the first US driver in a qualifying top ten since the 1993 Italian GP, which Michael Andretti started in P9.
Ironically, Alex Albon never achieved any higher starting position in a regular top-level machinery.
Lewis Hamilton’s second Q2 elimination this season.
Fernando Alonso broke the record for the longest interval between first & last/most recent podium appearance, starting from the 2003 Malaysian GP.
Additionally, a nice coincidence that in 2004, when Michael Schumacher matched the then-record for consecutive wins at even – he finished on the podium in the same race
2013 – Sebastian Vettel broke that record with nine in a row – he finished on the podium
2023 – Max Verstappen matched the record for nine consecutive wins – he finished on the podium
Another coincidence is that he finished second in both Alpine’s 2023 third-place finishes.
Finally, he became the sixth driver with FLAP this season & his previous came in the 2017 Hungarian GP, to be more precise.
Coincidently, Pierre Gasly’s 2021 Azerbaijan GP podium finish was also for P3.
The race made a new record featuring 186 overtakes, with the previous record being 170 in the 2016 Chinese GP.
However, this was largely helped by the ever-changing weather conditions.
Simon
30th August 2023, 23:38
Copied and pasted (except for the last sentence)? 🤔
Axel
30th August 2023, 12:38
Isn’t it the 11th GP Max has led?
Simon (@donsimoni)
30th August 2023, 13:13
Somewhat off-topic, but with Ricciardo’s injury and Verstappen’s run of consecutive races, it’s quite remarkable how rarely any driver is too injured or sick to compete.
BamBoomBots
30th August 2023, 13:30
Verstappen has also won 20 out of the 24 most recent Grand Prix (chose this interval as its the apparent goal for the race calender length of the FIA) . That is by far the most dominant streak ever performed by any driver over a 24 GP interval. Michael Schumacher has 2nd here, with 17 out of 24 from Spain 2003 to Hungary 2004. Lewis Hamilton with 16 wins out of 24 GP’s from Germany 2018 to Belgium 2019 comes in 3rd.
Please correct me if I’m wrong and I’ve missed another streak though.
Jimmy Cliff
30th August 2023, 14:04
You are correct – you could add Vettel as joined ranked 3rd with Lewis
* 16 wins from Singapore 2012 to US 2013 or 16 wins from Japan 2012 to Brazil 2013
Lewis had 11 of those 16 wins in 24 races streaks, mostly overlapping but 3 completely separated streaks.
Schumacher, Vettel and Max all just have 2 streaks achieved on subsequent races.
Max can increase his streak to 21 if he wins Monza as Austria 2022 which he finished 2nd would be replaced by a win.
If you look at the same 24 races span for teams, Red Bull after Zandvoort is sole record holder with 23 out of 24.
Mercedes is 2nd with 22 wins, McLaren is 3rd with 21 wins and Ferrari is 4th with 19 wins.
If you look at longer period of team dominance than Mercedes is still far ahead:
50 races period: Mercedes 43 wins, Ferrari 38 wins and Red Bull 37 wins
100 races period: Mercedes 75 wins, Ferrari 63 wins and Red Bull 49 wins (Vettel era), with Max they are at 47 wins.
The Dolphins
30th August 2023, 16:37
16 of the last 20 (since the last Dutch Grand Prix) — both of our intervals are rather arbitrary, mine given the calendar changes year to year
paulgilb (@paulgilb)
30th August 2023, 22:40
4th time Albon has started 4th – he is yet to start higher.
Gasly’s last 3 Sunday podiums have come in races where the team formerly known as Jordan finished on the podium.
Verstappen has won the last 12 races where he has started from pole (last non-converted pole was Austria 2022) – M Schumacher also managed this in 2003-04.
Verstappen has led more laps this year than in the whole of 2022.
Alonso has scored more points in 2023 so far than in the whole of 2021 and 2022 combined.
Ocon has finished 9th, 9th, and 10th in his 3 Zandvoort visits.
Ocon has exactly 400 career points.
First race with only 17 classified finishers since Australia.
Thanks to statsf1 and the official F1 site for some of these.
Simon
30th August 2023, 23:40
Crediting source/s 👍