Red Bull have been a dominant force this season, with Max Verstappen wrapping in his second consecutive world title in Suzuka, and the team confirming their status as constructors’ championship winners last time out in Austin.
The team had a faulting start with a double DNF in Bahrain, followed by another for Verstappen two races later in Australia, however once solving these technical problems Red Bull never looked back, winning race after race in a dominant year.
Verstappen has credited his team for an amazing year, but has also hinted at a slice of luck coming the way of his team, with Ferrari self-imploding with technical issues and poor strategy calls throughout the season and essentially putting themselves out of contention.
“At the [start of the year] I think we were in a difficult place, especially Australia was a very poor weekend for us,” he suggested.
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“The team really turned it around very quickly, the car became a lot more competitive and reliable, and that was definitely very important to turn it around.
“Then we had a bit of luck as well, people dropping points. When you look back on the season so far, what we have done as a team has been pretty incredible.”
Verstappen has been on the podium at every race bar Silverstone and Singapore since his DNF in Australia, while his closest rival Charles Leclerc has picked up a DNF at three races, alongside multiple finishes outside the top podium places due to team errors, giving Red Bull even more of an advantage.
Whist it would be easy for the team to switch off and coast through the final three races of the season, with nothing left to fight for, the 25-year-old has said that the team are already hard at work planning for 2023, with opportunities for learning still to come this year.
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“It’s not what’s left to prove, it’s more about learning more from the car, what we can apply to next year,” he explained when quizzed about the final three rounds of the season.
“Of course, we’ll try to win, but that naturally comes if the car is in a good state, a good window, that’s what we always try to achieve. Luckily it was again good enough in Austin but here we have to work from zero because it’s a completely new car,” he continued.
“That’s the same for everyone but I’m looking forward to it.”