Reigning World Champion Max Verstappen was quick to note how many races he’s won in Formula 1, following his victory on Sunday at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Verstappen’s win at the Hungaroring marked the 44th of his Formula 1 career, the same number which 2021 rival Lewis Hamilton races with.
As a result, the 25-year-old joked that he’d like to “get to 45 quickly”.
“Hopefully I don’t stay on 44 (race wins) for too long,” Verstappen said. “That would be terrible, I need to get to 45 quickly.”
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The two-time World Champion was imperious once again last weekend, as he claimed his seventh consecutive victory of the season by 33.7 seconds over Lando Norris.
Verstappen’s win was also his ninth of 2023 alone, whilst it also saw Red Bull break the record for most consecutive wins by a single team
Red Bull reached 12 victories in a row last weekend, a number which looks set to grow further.
Verstappen was ultimately able to cruise to victory number 44 after making his strong start, with him noting that the RB19 felt stronger during the race than it had done over one lap.
“Yeah, finally we had a really good start, very happy with that, we’ve been working on that quite a bit to try and get a good bite and, yeah, I know of course when I had the inside that corner was mine,” Verstappen said in his post-race interview.
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“It was just late on the brakes you are heavy car so luckily it all worked out well and from there I could do my race and today the car was really really quick.
“I think over one lap this weekend it was a bit of a struggle but maybe it was probably a good thing for today so, yeah, the car was good on any tyre and we could look after the tyre wear and basically that’s why we could create such a big gap.”
Verstappen will be the favourite to claim a 45th career win this weekend at the Belgian Grand Prix, considering that he’s won at the famous Spa-Francorchamps the last two seasons.