Throughout the 2023 Formula One season, Red Bull and Max Verstappen dominated the grid, preventing teams like Lewis Hamilton and his Mercedes team from getting a look in.
Toto Wolff, the head of Mercedes, acknowledged that Max Verstappen was the only driver who this year fully utilized the potential of his car.
The Dutchman had a startlingly dominant record at the end of the season. Just once, during a rare Red Bull off-weekend weekend at the Singapore Grand Prix, did he finish lower than second place despite winning 19 of the 22 races. Still, he earned points in fifth place.
Sergio Perez, a teammate, was much below him and finished the season with less than half as many points. Mercedes and Ferrari, for example, lacked the vehicles to match Verstappen’s, and their drivers’ performances fluctuated.
Sergio Perez, a teammate, was much below him and finished the season with less than half as many points. Mercedes and Ferrari, for example, lacked the vehicles to match Verstappen’s, and their drivers’ performances fluctuated.
Wolff observed fluctuations in the abilities of both his drivers. George Russell never found the consistency that marked his debut season as a Mercedes driver, while Lewis Hamilton scored heavily in the first half of the season but had a terrible finish.
The Austrian concedes that Verstappen was the only one to reach peak form. He remarked, “It’s hard to understand that good drivers in different teams have these oscillations of performance.” You’ve witnessed it happen with George and Lewis, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, and with [Carlos] Sainz and [Charles] Leclerc [here in Abu Dhabi].
“And Perez and Verstappen are the obvious ones. Perez does not trail Max by a single second. What then is that? It has been observed swinging both ways. I believe that at its core, everything revolves around the tyre grip. You can extract performance from the car if you can get it into a sweet spot and establish a stable platform early in the weekend.
“I believe that there simply isn’t a performance if you’re not. It’s like you’re literally falling off the cliff. I therefore cannot explain that. Max is the only person I believe has learned how to drive these tires this year.”
