After 6,500 kilometres of racing, 22 rounds over 1,294 laps, Max Verstappen climbed victoriously from the cockpit of his championship-winning Red Bull one last time along the Yas Marina pit straight to a rapturous ovation from the packed grandstand.
One final victory on the last Sunday of the season. Extending his own new all-time record for the highest win tally in a single grand prix season, Verstappen just could not say no to the final first place of the year.
Accepting the warm congratulations of his lifelong rival, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, who had finished second behind him, Verstappen acknowledged both the crowd and the unprecedented streak of success he had enjoyed over the previous nine months. Looking back at the scale of his accomplishments, Verstappen could’ve been forgiven for thinking that in this moment, this was as good as it was ever going to get for him in Formula 1.
“It’s been really enjoyable to work with the whole team and to be able to achieve something like this this year,” the triumphant world champion said, F1’s most successful season ever finally in the books. “I know it’s going to be hard to replicate something like this, but it’s also very good motivation to try and do well again next year.”
And with that, the 2022 world championship season had come to an end.
Just over 370 days later, Verstappen woke up for the final grand prix Sunday of 2023 looking to put the cap on a season that had outperformed that phenomenal previous season by every possible metric. What had been accomplishments the year before had become astonishments in 2023. More victories. More poles. More laps led. More complete and total domination.
But once again, there was still one more race to win. Pole position had already been acquired, naturally. Fittingly, Leclerc was the one lining up alongside him on the front row – the driver who had the most front row starts of any driver aside from Verstappen himself. The Ferrari driver had been a genuine nuisance for Verstappen and Red Bull the previous weekend in Las Vegas. Could he offer a challenge today?
As much as Leclerc would have loved to take the fight to the champion, his eyes were purely focused on a more urgent goal: beating Mercedes. A four-point swing was all Ferrari needed to take the runner-up spot in the constructors’ championship from their rivals. Leclerc was determined to come out swinging for it, and he needed to be,…
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