Max Verstappen has now started 199 world championship grands prix – the same number as Alain Prost – won three Formula 1 titles and taken 61 victories. He’s third on the wins list and seems well on his way to a fourth world crown, so where does he sit in the pantheon of all-time greats?
Verstappen’s victory strike rate is currently 31%, behind just Juan Manuel Fangio, Alberto Ascari and Jim Clark, and very similar to Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher and Jackie Stewart. Prost and Ayrton Senna, whose careers overlapped considerably, both had strike rates of just over 25%. Verstappen is thus very much worthy of comparison with F1’s best.
Statistics alone are notoriously fraught with pitfalls. Just the improving reliability of the cars and number of races per season skew things to such a degree that the data can only be a rough guide.
Comparing across eras is tricky, given how much motorsport has changed, so a reasonable place to start is the era-defining drivers, those regarded by many – including their peers – as the best of their time. In world championship terms, that gives us Fangio, Stirling Moss, Clark, Stewart, Niki Lauda, Prost, Senna, Schumacher and Hamilton. Then there are those who perhaps briefly held that mantle or could be regarded on a similar level, chiefly Ascari, Gilles Villeneuve, Nigel Mansell and Fernando Alonso.
Verstappen is well on his way to being the 10th name on the first list. It’s not yet guaranteed – the same could have been said of Sebastian Vettel in 2013 when he was set to clinch a fourth consecutive title – but the Dutchman’s record already puts him in the debate, and most would regard him as the current benchmark.
Verstappen’s qualifying pace has never been in doubt and nor has his wet-weather prowess – he already has more rain-affected GP wins than all but Schuey, Hamilton and Senna. He also proved he was capable of maximising a car that isn’t the best, brilliantly challenging for wins in 2019-20.
Verstappen has also dominated his team-mates since Daniel Ricciardo left Red Bull at the end of 2018. Ricciardo beat him in 2017 and had the momentum earlier the following season. He might not admit it publicly but, after mistakes in China and Monaco cost him possible victories that Ricciardo hoovered up, Verstappen upped his game. Mistakes became fewer and there is little doubt he had the edge over the Australian by the end of 2018.
During the same period, the dubious moves under braking that were apparent early in his F1 career also reduced and no other team-mate has got near him since. It’s probably fair to say he hasn’t faced a particularly stern test in that department – we’ve not seen a Lauda-Prost, Prost-Senna or Alonso-Hamilton contest – but his domination at Red Bull has been impressive.
His relentless race pace and ability to lap quickly while looking after the tyres, a la Hamilton, have arguably destroyed Sergio Perez (think of the 2023 Miami and Belgian GPs). And Verstappen’s ridiculous tally of 19 wins from 23 races ticks another box of the greats: making winning in the best car look easier than it really is.
This season he has also proved his ability to win races that he probably shouldn’t have won given the relative strengths of his machinery, reminiscent of Hamilton at times in 2017-19. Think Imola, Montreal and Barcelona. Even when Red Bull is slightly off its game, others need to maximise what they have to beat him.
They are the strengths, so what are the weaknesses? What are the boxes, aside from taking on and beating a great team-mate, he has yet to tick that help us position him against the other greats?
Verstappen has always been unapologetically uncompromising, and some would see that as a strength
So far, Verstappen has won races for only one team/constructor. It’s a minor point but, when comparing the greats, every little counts. All of the Big Nine won GPs with at least two teams or constructors, with the exception of Clark. Verstappen is surely capable of winning elsewhere, it’s simply a box he hasn’t yet ticked.
Given some of his radio messages, most obviously at this year’s Hungarian GP, and public outbursts, it’s hard to imagine him helping to build a team into a winning force. He’ll get the job done in a top team, no question, but it seems unlikely that he could help create a powerhouse in the way that Schumacher did at Ferrari, or even have the sort of relationship Clark enjoyed with Lotus boss Colin Chapman or Stewart had with Ken Tyrrell.
But the most obvious Verstappen drawback has reared its head once again during the current campaign. Unnecessary clashes with Lando Norris in Austria and Hamilton in Hungary demonstrate that he still strays over the line of what is acceptable in wheel-to-wheel combat.
Verstappen has always been unapologetically uncompromising, and some would see that as a strength. It’s probably fair to say it has won him some races he might otherwise have lost, though this writer would argue that the way someone wins is as important as the winning itself.
Just in the tight 2021 season against Hamilton, there were dubious moves at Imola, Barcelona, Monza (twice), Interlagos and Jeddah. The highly controversial Silverstone clash, a rare case of Hamilton being adjudged the aggressor, could also have been avoided if Verstappen – then comfortably leading the championship and with the faster car – had kept an eye on the bigger picture, but that weekend probably requires an article of its own…
Across 2022 and 2023, some talked of Verstappen’s new-found maturity as clashes became few and far between, even in races when he had to bring his Red Bull through the field after grid penalties. But actually, there were signs.
His moves against Mick Schumacher at Silverstone in 2022 would probably have ended in a crash had Mick’s father been in the Haas, and there was the (let’s be generous) ‘optimistic’ move on Hamilton at Interlagos later that season. Some of his first-corner moves on Charles Leclerc, most notably at the 2023 Las Vegas GP, were also borderline, though Verstappen has generally been fair with the Ferrari star.
Verstappen and his fans might argue that they don’t care about the above and it’s not a weakness. But they will care about the points that have been lost due to incidents.
Just as Senna both won and lost races due to his aggressiveness, Verstappen sometimes loses out. Although his clash with Norris at the Red Bull Ring was relatively small fry, Verstappen’s misjudgement there meant he scored a fifth place instead of a second.
And completely losing the plot in Hungary meant Verstappen got a fifth rather than a third, and it could have been worse had the RB20 not proved so solid after its aerial journey. It’s hard to imagine Senna or Schumacher – the two most like Verstappen when it comes to being hard on-track – not seeing the bigger picture and banking the optimum result on the day.
Verstappen doesn’t have a blot on his copybook as big as Senna’s 1990 Japanese GP takeout of Prost or Schumacher’s move on Jacques Villeneuve at the European GP seven years later – he didn’t take Hamilton off at Abu Dhabi in 2021 when he could have done. But he also hasn’t shown he can always make the right calls in a proper title fight and hasn’t put together a brilliant campaign against the odds as Stewart (1973), Prost (1986), Senna (1991) and Alonso (2012) did.
There’s still time for Verstappen to do either, which is why no definitive placing can be made just yet. As things stand, Verstappen is in the mix but has more gaps than most of the established legends, which puts him around 10th-15th.
That’s an incredible position for a 26-year-old, and much of how high Verstappen climbs in the coming years will be down to him.
