Max Verstappen responds to outside noise on Red Bull’s unbeaten season chances
Max Verstappen has insisted he is paying no attention to the outside noise over Red Bull’s chances of completing an unbeaten season in F1 2023, insisting the team must focus on maximising each race weekend.
Red Bull have won all of the opening eight races of the season to date, with Verstappen victorious at six (Bahrain, Australia, Miami, Monaco, Spain, Canada) and team-mate Sergio Perez triumphant twice in Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan.
The team currently hold a 154-point lead over Mercedes in the Constructors’ standings, with Verstappen on course for a third consecutive Drivers’ title having opened up a gap of 69 points to Perez after a run of four successive wins.
Red Bull’s perfect start to 2023 has raised the prospect that they could become the first team to win every race in a season, with Mercedes driver George Russell making the claim as early as the opening race weekend in Bahrain in March.
McLaren came closest to achieving the feat in 1988, when between them Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost won 15 of a possible 16 grands prix behind the wheel of the legendary MP4/4 car – only missing out at Monza, where Gerhard Berger took the first win for Ferrari following the death of eponymous team founder Enzo.
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While acknowledging that Red Bull have made a fine start to the season, Verstappen – the winner of 31 of the last 52 races stretching back to the start of his maiden title-winning campaign in 2021 – is wary that factors outside of their control can take away the team’s shot at history.
And he has stressed that the team must continue to focus on themselves and ignore the growing expectations around them.
He toldForbes: “It doesn’t really matter what people are saying from the outside. You have to just focus on what you can control and that’s within the team and with the car, and that’s what we’re doing.
“Of course we had a really good start to the year and of course we’d really like to keep that going, but sometimes it can also be a bit out of your hands what is happening throughout the weekend.
“It’s a very long season and it’s all about trying to maximise the result every single weekend.”
红牛将会继续他们的100%start to the season at their home race in Austria this weekend, with Verstappen winning the race on four separate occasions – including twice in seven days in the pandemic-affected 2021 campaign – since 2018.
The 2019 race at the Red Bull Ring was the scene of the team’s first win with engine partner Honda, achieved in dramatic circumstances by Verstappen.
