Red Bull Motorsports
F1
The 4 Formula One storylines to follow for the rest of 2023
There's 10 races to go. History to make, hoodoos to banish and trophies to win. Here's what we're watching for as F1 stirs from its mid-season siesta.
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Formula One in 2023 – if you're an Oracle Red Bull Racing fan at least – is a little like re-watching a favorite movie over and over again; there's that warm, familiar feeling and there's always a happy ending.
With 12 rounds of the 22-race calendar in the books before F1 paused for a three-week hiatus ahead of a rush to the finish line, all 12 Grand Prix wins have been shared by Max Verstappen (10) and Sergio Pérez (2). Add in Verstappen's victories in Sprint Races in Austria and Belgium, plus Perez's short-form success in Azerbaijan and it's more like tennis (15-love) than F1 so far.
Want proof that a sport can be dominated by one entity and still be intriguing? Sure. Already this season we've seen Red Bull Racing break a 35-year-old record for most consecutive wins (13 and counting, dating back to last year's season finale in Abu Dhabi), but we've had eight different drivers finish on the podium, seven lead a race, five set a fastest race lap and three start from pole position.
That's what has happened, but what might take place once action resumes with this weekend's Dutch Grand Prix all the way through to Abu Dhabi on November 26? Here's a quick quartet of storylines you need to keep an eye on for the final 45 per cent of a season where there's still plenty to talk about.
01
Max versus history
Singapore is a big box to tick for Verstappen for the rest of 2023
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
10 wins, two Sprint victories, seven poles, 314 points, a 100 per cent podium record and a world championship advantage of 125 points after 12 races; you could have excused Max Verstappen for wanting to waive his mid-season break for some more racing with how 2023 has gone. He's led for 567 of the 724 laps raced so far.
A lot has been achieved, but what's on the horizon will undoubtedly provide fuel for the 25-year-old from here. Most imminent is the all-time consecutive wins streak of nine, set by Sebastian Vettel when the German great won the final nine races of his 2013 championship campaign for Red Bull Racing.
Verstappen can equal that this weekend at home in Zandvoort, while his records for most wins (15, set last year), points (454, again in 2022) and podiums (18 in 2021) in one season are all within reach.
8 min
Max Verstappen drift driving challenge
Oracle Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen gets behind the wheel of a drift car with ‘Mad’ Mike Whiddett.
They're the numerical marks to strive for, but there's another big box to tick that has defied logic while sticking out like a sore thumb. Singapore is the only race that's been on the schedule for the entirety of Verstappen's nine-year career where he's never won. While he's come close before (second in 2018), you can expect September 17 has been circled on the Dutchman's calendar as one night where he'll be switched on to right a rare wrong.
1 min
Max Reveals His Special Dutch Grand Prix Helmet
Once again, Max will drive with a special edition helmet during the 2023 Dutch Grand Prix.
02
Checo's street smarts and home heroics
Hands up who wants a Checo win in Mexico?
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
With 189 points at the mid-year break, Sergio Pérez is well on track to set a new single-season high-water mark in 2023. The Mexican had two victories on the way to 305 points last year, while – for context – the 33-year-old has almost outpaced his 190-point tally from his first season with the team (2021) in a little over half of this campaign.
There's plenty to look forward to for Pérez as this season winds towards its conclusion, both in calendar composition and geography. With five of his six Grand Prix wins – not to mention his Sprint Race win in Baku in April – coming on road courses, the two street tracks remaining this year will be right up Pérez's alley, especially given he won so brilliantly under the lights in Singapore a year ago.
And then there's Mexico (October 29), where Pérez's face is on seemingly every billboard in Mexico City for months beforehand shows his popularity, and where – he'll need no reminding – no Mexican driver has ever won.
8 min
Pérez's Nevada night out
What happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas. Relive an epic night with Formula One driver Sergio Pérez.
The Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez first appeared on the calendar in 1986 and the Checo fans that pack into the Foro Sol baseball stadium section of the circuit have given this event an atmosphere like no other, especially since their hero has been in podium-winning machinery.
If Pérez finishes two steps higher on the rostrum at home than he did the past two seasons? It's hard to imagine a party that would be bigger, let alone when it might actually end.
03
Top two comes into view
Verstappen and Pérez have five 1–2 finishes so far this season
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
It's one of the strangest stats of Red Bull Racing's rise to become on the sport's standout squads; Verstappen's victory in Canada this year saw the team become one of just five (along with Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Williams) to reach the magical milestone of 100 F1 wins, but left it in an unwanted class of one in that quintet.
It's quite the company to be keeping for a team in its 19th F1 season, but for all of that success and six Drivers' Championships (plus five Constructors' Championships) so far, Red Bull Racing has never had its drivers finish 1–2 in the standings in the same season.
Every time a Red Bull driver has won the title, a rival has produced a season that defied expectations to slot into second.
Pérez was nudged back to third by Charles Leclerc in Abu Dhabi last November but with 10 rounds to go this year, Checo sits second with a 40-point buffer to third place to build upon. Could this be the year for that long-awaited 1-2?
04
Ricciardo resets the stakes
Ricciardo's arrival puts the Aussie - and Tsunoda - under the spotlight
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
It's been a tricky first half (and a bit) of 2023 for Scuderia AlphaTauri, with Yuki Tsunoda taking all three of the team's points (for 10th-place finishes in Australia, Azerbaijan and Belgium) and the squad sitting at the foot of the Constructors' Standings with 10 races remaining.
So why the intrigue? That, of course, has a lot to do with Daniel Ricciardo, the Oracle Red Bull Racing third driver who suited up alongside Tsunoda from Hungary onward, when the team decided to release Nyck De Vries. Ricciardo's eight F1 wins and 12-season tenure speak statistically to his quality and longevity, but the attention that went with resumption of the career of one of the sport's most popular figures in Budapest even surprised the 34-year-old Australian.
4 min
Ricciardo vs Tsunoda in mini jet boats
Oracle Red Bull Racing and Scuderia AlphaTauri drivers race each other for fun ahead of the Miami Grand Prix.
Can Ricciardo get back towards his best? Is his return a way to measure Tsunoda's progress and benchmark the Japanese driver's results in his third season? Will the pair propel the AT04 into the thick of the lower midfield fight that features Alfa Romeo, Williams and Haas? Over these final 10 race weekends, it'll be fun to find answers to those questions – and more.
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