What better place than the “The Temple of Speed” for Max Verstappen to set a new Formula One record with 10 straight wins.
A victory at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza next weekend would break the mark he shares with Sebastian Vettel. Perhaps fittingly, it would be on the track where Vettel clinched the first of his 53 GP wins in 2008. The retired Vettel went on to dominate F1 and won four consecutive world titles with Red Bull, the last of them in 2013 the year he won nine straight races. Vettel was Red Bull’s first superstar in its first ultra-dominant era, but Verstappen is now leaving him in his tracks. Vettel looked unstoppable only when at his very best, but Verstappen looks untouchable most of the time. Verstappen’s victory at the rain-soaked Dutch GP on Sunday matched Vettel’s mark of nine straight wins in a season, and moved him onto 46 overall. With so many years left ahead of him, the 25-year-old Dutchman is set to crush Vettel’s career tally for wins. Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton holds F1 records with 103 wins and 104 pole positions. But even the seven-time F1 champion never managed more than five consecutive wins during his heyday with Mercedes, doing so twice near the end of title-winning campaigns in 2014 and 2020.