Max Verstappen’s 17th win of the Formula One season rewrote the record books and established the triple world champion as one of the sport’s greatest over the course of a campaign. Until Sunday’s São Paulo Grand Prix at Interlagos, the highest win percentage for a season was the 75% held by Italian champion Alberto Ascari, who won six out of eight world championship races with Ferrari in 1952.
Verstappen’s tally so far from 20 races puts his win percentage at 85%, and even if he does not win the remaining two rounds of the season in Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi, he will still finish above 77%.
Not that the Dutch 26-year-old was paying too much attention to the statistics when asked how much the numbers resonated and motivated him. “It’s not something that, I mean, it’s not something that when I joined Formula One, I need to have a 75% win record over a season, you know,” he told reporters.
“These kinds of things come along when everything just works really well. I feel good in the car, the car is very competitive, and the team barely makes mistakes as well. So then you can get a season like we are having,” Verstappen explained. “For me, it’s more about just enjoying the moment and trying to maximize every single opportunity,” he concluded.
