Verstappen Deliberately Chose Worse Strategy In Order To Break Major F1 Record

Thursday, 30 November 2023 at 10:00

Updated at Thursday, 30 November 2023 at 19:07

Red Bull Racing F1 driver tailored his strategy to the 2023 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix specifically so he could break another F1 record.

Max Verstappen finalized the 2023 season with another dominant win when he crossed the finish line in Abu Dhabi in first place, more than 17 seconds ahead of Charles Leclerc in second place.

The three-time World Champion strangely won the race by a great margin despite not using the optimal race strategy. The Dutchman himself confessed after the race it was on purpose to set a new record.

By leading every single lap of the race, Verstappen broke a magical milestone of leading more than 1000 laps in a single season. In total, he led 1003 laps, which is 75.70% of all the laps in 22 races. He told the media after the race:

"Well, I knew it was on the cards, of course, going into the race. And also, from the engineering side with the strategy, we wanted to, of course, try and plan it in a way that I wouldn't pit too early."

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At one point in the race, the 26-year-old went on the team radio and told his engineer Red Bull could pit Perez earlier than him which seemed like a nice gesture, but as it turns out, it was very well calculated.

"So, just wait for others to pit. Of course, to try and achieve that it was maybe not always the, let's say, the fastest strategy. But I wanted to stay in the lead, of course, to get the laps in."

Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner told the media ahead of the 2023 Sao Paulo Grand Prix that Max Verstappen is "not obsessive in chasing records or statistics," but as we can see, that is not completely true.

The three-time World Champion broke 14 new records during the 2023 season, and he genuinely deserves every single one of them, as he did not make a single mistake all throughout the season.