2-Time F1 Champion Max Verstappen's Stock Keeps Going Up

Max Verstappen's first championship was controversial, at best. Although he ran a magnificent season to put himself into the position to win, the timing of a safety car and uncharacteristic plan to force an earlier restart before full wave-around procedure was complete casts a long shadow over his 2021 title. His 2022 season carries no such qualifiers.

This is the twentieth and final installment of our driver-by-driver preview of the 2023 Formula 1 season. You can find the rest of our previews here.

Verstappen's 2022 was outrageous. Although his percentage of wins was lower than either, his 15 2022 wins shattered Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel's records for a season by two. Another two podiums mean that Verstappen finished worse than third just five times over 22 rounds. It was a dominant showing, one that answered every possible question about whether or not Verstappen and this iteration of Red Bull were built to win big. Now, the question becomes how long they can do it.

HOW HE GOT HERE

Verstappen's rise through the open wheel ranks is so uncharacteristically fast that it forced a rule change. He jumped from karts to cars in the 2014 offseason, then won ten races en route to third in the 2014 Formula 3 championship. It was all Red Bull needed to see before promoting him directly to F1 for 2015, a decision that inspired the FIA to introduce a more robust and thorough licensing system soon afterward.

At the time, the decision seemed like a surefire way to waste a prospect's incredible potential. When Red Bull pulled a similar stunt with Jaime Alguersuari, the driver Verstappen replaced as the youngest F1 starter ever, it ended with Alugersuari out of F1 within three years and retired from racing to concentrate on his career as a DJ by 25. Verstappen skipped even further, going straight to the Scuderia Toro Rosso junior team at just 17 without a season in any international series following F1 or junior championship of any level to his name.

Verstappen overcame those concerns quickly. He scored points regularly in a 2015 season highlighted by two finishes of fourth, then got the call to move straight up to Red Bull's senior team four races into the 2016 season. That weekend, he became the youngest driver to ever win an F1 race. Four more podiums rounded out a finish of fifth in the series championship.

Verstappen improved gradually for the next few years, never winning more than three races between 2017 and 2020, but he kept improving and continued to win multiple races every year. With Sebastian Vettel falling out of favor at Ferrari, it was enough to make him the clear greatest threat to Lewis Hamilton for the championship in the 2021 season. He lived up to that promise by winning ten races in 2021, the last of those wins being the controversial race at Abu Dhabi that decided his first championship.