by STEFANO OLLANU
An invincible Red Bull
Never before had a Formula 1 car managed to win 21 grand prix in a single season, also because at the time of the McLaren MP4/4 there were 16 races on the program (and it won 15). But the Red Bull dominance which was witnessed by fans, professionals and even rival teams, it will hardly be possible to repeat it.
And what also makes an impression is the enormous figure of 19 successes in a single championship added up by champion Max Verstappen, now well established in the history books of Formula 1 after his third consecutive world title after those of 2022 and 2021.
But is it Red Bull or is it Max?
However, the performances put on the track by Sergio Perez have raised some doubts about the real value of the RB19 and several observers have wondered whether it is Verstappen who makes the difference even more than his car.
The Mexican managed to finish second in the world championship, but with just 9 podiums, only one more than Fernando Alonso and two more than Lando Norris.
The former Formula 1 driver, Jan Lammers – active in the category between 1979 and 1992 – is convinced that there is a lot of Verstappen in Red Bull's results: “I think the car is much less dominant than it might seem. The Singapore GP showed that Red Bull can also be vulnerable. The domain of Max Verstappen it also depended on the riders behind him. If we were to remove it from the rankings, we would find that it would have been a normal championship. The difference between Verstappen and Perez is purely in terms of driving, Max knows how to get the most out of the car, the environment and the situations that arise. They had to work to obtain these results, because often on Friday things didn't seem so promising, and furthermore the gap was favored by the alternation of the first rival team, sometimes Aston Martin, other Mercedes, other Ferrari and still other McLaren”.
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