Max Verstappen’s top 10 F1 wins (so far)

All these years later, there’s no forgetting Max Verstappen’s incredible first grand prix win: at the tender age of 18, he became the youngest ever driver to take the chequered flag and his record will probably never be broken. Promoted to the full Red Bull works team just five races into the season at the expense of Daniil Kvyat (gosh, remember him?) the young Dutchman performed admirably in qualifying - in a car he’d barely driven - to start fourth on the grid.

The two Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg were expected to romp into the distance from the front row, but the bitter rivals lasted just four as they took each other out on the opening lap. That left Daniel Ricciardo in the other Red Bull and the Ferraris of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen in a four-way fight to the flag with Verstappen.

As the lead drivers, Vettel and Ricciardo were put on a three-stop strategy - thought to be the optimum for the race - but it was Verstappen and Raikkonen’s two-stopper that prevailed. And although the Finn heaped the pressure on Verstappen in the closing laps, the teenager held firm to score an unforgettable debut win.

This was F1 and Verstappen’s equivalent of ‘...and I took that personal'. The quickest driver throughout practice, Q1 and Q2, Verstappen was in red hot form and looked certain to take his first ever pole position in the final part of qualifying. But Daniel Ricciardo had other ideas, finding some more pace when it mattered and edging his teammate out by a few thousandths of a second.

Verstappen was furious. Denied the chance to become F1’s youngest ever polesitter, he channelled his anger into the race and oh my was he on it. He charged past Ricciardo at the start and never looked back, lapping all but three cars and finishing a full 17 seconds clear of Sebastian Vettel in second place.

One of Verstappen’s most spectacular wins, this. The Dutchman had an awful start when his car got anti-stall off the line, dropping him from second on the grid all the way down to eighth place on the opening lap. That looked to have ruined any chance he had of victory, but it actually made his race.

After hauling himself back into contention in the opening laps, Verstappen unleashed Plan B: extend his first stint to give himself a tyre advantage with which to steamroller his rivals at the end of the race.

It worked. With Lewis Hamilton taken out of the equation by a costly front wing change, Verstappen went on the attack with 20 laps to go. First he tore past Vettel, then he cruised past Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas, and then he began hunting down race leader Charles Leclerc. Somehow the Ferrari driver fended off Verstappen’s first move, but his, er, more robust approach the second time round was decisive: Max dived down the inside of Turn 3 and having gained the right to the racing line, he held firm as they banged wheels and Leclerc bounced off the racetrack.

The fans went wild, and although the stewards inquiry into the race-winning overtake meant the result wasn’t confirmed until three hours later, it didn’t detract from a remarkable drive. Nor Honda’s first win in 13 years as an engine supplier.

Ah 2020, the year F1 - and the world - went a bit weird. Held at Silverstone a week after the British Grand Prix at, um, Silverstone, the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix was billed as a celebration of seven decades of F1, which held its first race at that very circuit in 1950.

Seven days after Lewis Hamilton had won there on three wheels, this was expected to be an easy win for him and Mercedes given their pace advantage at one of F1’s fastest tracks.

However, two things changed: the weather got warmer, and F1 mixed up the tyre compounds available to the teams to try and shake up the action. Suddenly it was Verstappen’s Red Bull that had the upper hand in race trim because his car was much kinder to its rubber than the usually quicker Mercs. And lo, the iconic Verstappen line “I’m not just sitting behind like a grandma!” came to pass, milliseconds after asked on the radio if he wouldn’t mind backing off a bit in P3. Yes, yes he would, actually.

Turns out Verstappen knew best, turning the screw on the Silver Arrows duo and making sure that when he emerged from the pits on lap 27, Bottas’s lead lasted just four more corners. From there it was plain sailing to the chequered flag. What a pity there were no fans there to see it.

The first of two tactical masterclasses that we’ve picked out from Max’s back catalogue of brilliance. And both from that titanic 2021 title battle with Lewis Hamilton. With the two protagonists on the front row of the grid, pole-sitter Verstappen lost the lead on the opening lap after running wide at Turn 2, forcing him to rethink his gameplan.

Noticing that the undercut (pitting earlier than the car ahead to overtake it by blitzing the out lap on fresh tyres) was very powerful at Paul Ricard, Red Bull brought Verstappen in on lap 19. Mercedes didn’t react immediately, and that allowed Max to sweep back into the lead of the race.

The Merc still looked like the quicker car, but Verstappen held Hamilton off and then pitted for a second time just 13 laps later. That compelled Hamilton to stay out and make a one-stop work, but even though the British driver had a 20-second advantage, Verstappen gobbled that up and was on his gearbox with just a few laps remaining.

Max made his move on the penultimate lap, and having outfoxed his championship rival he ghosted past without fuss down the back straight to win in what seemed to be the slower car on the day. A crucial, crucial victory.

Fast forward to the US Grand Prix and we basically have the roles reversed, with Red Bull and Verstappen pitting early to grab track position and forcing Hamilton to do the chasing.

Just like in France it was the Briton who snatched the lead at the start, but Verstappen came in first for both of his pit stops knowing that Mercedes - running the same two-stop strategy - would have the grippier tyres at the end.

In the final few laps Lewis was hounding the Red Bull relentlessly, but Verstappen had judged his rubber to perfection, keeping enough grip in reserve to pull clear every time they approached the big DRS zone on the back straight. Hamilton never got a sniff of the lead, and the unexpected win for Max would prove vital come the end of the season. On which note…

… we couldn’t leave this out could we? Verstappen’s dramatic win at the season finale in Abu Dhabi in 2021 makes the cut not so much for his performance, but for the sheer bravery in making a title-clinching overtake stick on the last lap of the whole campaign. However unfair some people thought the circumstances were.

Let’s recap: yet again Verstappen was beaten off the line from pole, and in race trim it looked like Mercedes and Hamilton were going to cruise to victory. Even a fresh set of tyres mid-way through the race and teammate Sergio Perez being used as a glorified road block weren’t enough to reel the seven-time champion in.

But Verstappen kept pushing in the hope of a miracle, and with a handful of laps to go, he got one: a crash brought out the safety car and allowed him to pit for new tyres again, while Hamilton could only stay out on old rubber and hope that the race didn’t restart.

It did. With lapped cars controversially cleared out of the way, Max gave it everything on the last racing lap of the season and barged his way past in Turn 5 before defending Hamilton’s fightback to earn his first ever world championship. He’ll never win another one like it.

One of Verstappen’s many ‘How to Win from Anywhere on the Grid’ displays. The 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix was one of the most difficult of the season to call ahead of the race, with Mercedes’ George Russell a shock pole-sitter and Verstappen way down in 10th having had engine issues in qualifying. Surely he couldn’t win from there on a track where overtaking is notoriously hard?

Er, yes he could. Using soft tyres at the start to get the jump on those ahead of him, Verstappen was already on the tail of the frontrunners after the first round of pit stops. One by one he picked them off, grabbing what was effectively the race lead from Charles Leclerc on lap 41. It wasn’t straightforward by any means: Max had a spin the following lap and had to pass Leclerc again, but not even an accidental pirouette was going to keep him from taking the chequered flag.

If it wasn’t obvious already at the time, this was the weekend that F1 truly became the Verstappen & Red Bull Show. And that’s how it’s been ever since.

The championship leader comfortably took pole position in qualifying, but started from 14th on the grid after taking penalties for using too many engine parts. Ordinarily that would put a driver out of the frame for the race win, but even from here there was a grim acceptance among his rivals that Max would be in the mix.

The drivers were right. But what they didn’t predict is just how rapidly Verstappen would haul himself into the race lead. With the Ferraris pitting early, Max was past his teammate Perez - who’d started on the front bleedin’ row - by lap 12, and he was the outright race leader by lap 18. Nope, not even halfway through the grand prix. Simply phenomenal.

When he crossed the line he was 18 seconds clear of the other Red Bull and only two other cars finished within a minute of him. Total domination.

Surprisingly the only race win we’ve picked from 2023 (and good lord were there a lot of those), but then it was only in the first few races of the campaign that Verstappen was even remotely touchable. The RB19 was in a class of its own right from the start of course, but in the four races leading up to Miami it was two wins apiece for Max and Sergio in the sister car. In fact the Mexican was talking himself up as a title contender, before scoring pole as Verstappen failed to set a qualifying time in Q3.

Verstappen… did not appreciate this. And so from P9 on the grid, he set about doing what he does best, scything through the field and into second place - less than four seconds down on his teammate - after just 15 laps. Perez soon pitted but Verstappen just kept going, only ditching his first set of tyres 12 laps from the end.

Despite having gone so far on old rubber he emerged from the pits right behind Perez, and two laps later he powered past to take the lead and the win. And send a very clear message to the Mexican: I am number one. Hence the gesture in the image above.

After that, Verstappen ended up winning 16 more races in 2023, while Perez won… none. And his form vanished for the best part of six months. So consider Miami an almighty psychological blow.

Agree with this list? Of course you don’t, you are on the internet and consensus is the enemy. Feel free to make your own suggestions below: we reckon the 2019 German GP, 2021 Dutch GP (his home race), the 2022 Japanese GP (where Max wrapped up title #2) and the Italian and Japanese grands prix of 2023 all deserve honourable mentions. Plus Brazil 2016, even though Verstappen didn’t actually win that one…