With his victory in the Italian Grand Prix, Max Verstappen made history. It was the Red Bull driver’s 10th straight victory, a feat never accomplished by a Formula One driver since the competition’s inception in 1950.
The victory at Monza was notable because, despite his unrelenting progress, he ended it with the air of someone taking a walk around a park, notably the Parco di Monza, which was maybe fitting.
10,000 trees were uprooted in the parks where the circuit is located after storms that battered the area in late July and severely damaged the area’s natural attractiveness. Verstappen, who is now arguably Formula One’s own force of nature, was similarly unyielding in securing his record-breaking victory.
This is not meant to minimize Verstappen’s accomplishments. Without a doubt, his vehicle is quite dominating, but the 25-year-old Dutchman has also had to perform. He overcame being in ninth place to win in Miami, defeating Pérez, who had started from pole position, and dealing a fatal blow to his teammate’s hopes of winning the championship. In Spa, he improved from sixth to first similarly. In ten instances, he had to carry out the task with pinpoint accuracy, and he almost always succeeded.
It is not his fault and shouldn’t take away from the accomplishment that it has become formulaic and sapped the sport of its intensity. Verstappen is an athlete at the pinnacle of his power, using it with incredible panache, much as Tiger Woods did when he was delivering inch-perfect demolitions of golf courses all over the globe.
He expressed his pride in the accomplishment, and it was evident that he relished the event. He put up both hands after getting out of the automobile, each with all five fingers extended to signify the 10th victory. Anyone may speculate as to where he will go with the gesture when the 11th, 12th, or 13th fall, and on current form, there is no reason he won’t claim them.
From second on the grid, he played a waiting game in the early stages of the race until passing Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz for the lead on lap 15. From that point on, he was untouchable, as he had been in the nine races before this one in which he had won. Behind Verstappen’s Red Bull colleague Sergio Pérez, who moved up from seventh on the grid to second, Sainz came in third.
Verstappen started a winning streak in May when he took first place at the Miami Grand Prix, although the victory had always seemed to be in his hands. He has surpassed Sebastian Vettel’s 2013 record of nine straight victories with his tenth straight victory. Vettel emailed Verstappen last week to urge him to go for the record, seeing what nearly everyone else had seen as the writing on the wall.
Verstappen and Red Bull duly rejoiced as much as they could. His squad is now on track to complete a historic clean sweep this season after winning 24 of the previous 25 races.
However, the home crowd was also in a festive mood. With nothing to celebrate this year, Ferrari enjoyed Verstappen’s podium finish at the home race almost as if it had been a victory. Verstappen now plays the same pantomime baddie role at Monza that Lewis Hamilton once did.
An echoing chant of “Carlos, Carlos, Carlos” echoed between the grandstands as the start-finish straight thronged with supporters, flags, and smoke from red flares, still one of the most exciting spectacles in motor sport. Verstappen may have a fantastic resume, but they were determined to enjoy themselves to the fullest by using Ferrari’s guy, who had put up such a fight.
Verstappen cruised to victory after he had the lead, but Sainz was challenged with the equipment he had and later set off some spectacular late-race action when he and his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc engaged in a vicious battle for third. Sainz just edged off his buddy to finish fourth, proving that it was wonderful stuff that certainly lifted the emotions of the tifosi.
Verstappen acknowledged his lack of belief in his own ability while trying to process it, but now that he has 47 career wins, even some of Formula One’s other great records seem to be within reach. As for his third championship, he leads Pérez by 145 points in the world championship and is likely to defend it in the next two or three matches.
Hamilton and George Russell finished fifth and sixth for Mercedes.Fernando Alonso was ninth for Aston Martin, Valtteri Bottas was tenth for Alfa Romeo, Albon was an amazing seventh for Williams, and Norris was eighth for McLaren.
