Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen has dominated Formula 1 over the last few years, winning 15 races in 2022 and 19 in 2023. Despite a couple of wins going to Red Bull’s rivals already in 2024, it seems unlikely that Verstappen won’t add a fourth title to his tally this season.
Since entering Formula 1 in 2015, Verstappen has repeatedly shown us just how good he is. This list contains 13 of his very best drives, mainly from the last few years but with a few earlier in his career sprinkled in as well.
2022 Japanese Grand Prix
F1 shortened the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix due to heavy rain. But despite this, Verstappen showed his class once again. He defended from Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari at the start, and once the race got underway again, Verstappen drove into the distance.
The race lasted about 45 minutes in total, yet after 28 laps, Verstappen was 26.5 seconds ahead of his nearest rival, equating to nearly a second-a-lap advantage over the field. This is the race at which Verstappen won his second world title and reminded us all just how good he is in the wet weather.
2023 Miami Grand Prix
Verstappen started the 2023 Miami Grand Prix in ninth place after an aborted first lap in qualifying. A crash by Leclerc near the end of the session meant he couldn’t put in a meaningful lap time. Which was a bigger problem with teammate and nearest championship rival Sergio Perez starting in the pole position.
Yet Verstappen in the dominant RB19 cut through the field like a hot knife through butter. Starting on the harder tires, he was up to second after 15 laps, and only 3.7 seconds behind his teammate. By the time Verstappen came out of the pits after his stop on lap 45 of 57, he was 1.6 seconds behind and passed Perez at the start of the next lap. This win was a massive psychological blow to Perez, as the Mexican went off the rails while Verstappen won the next nine races in a row.
2021 United States Grand Prix
At the height of the fierce title battle with Lewis Hamilton in 2021, Verstappen stuck his Red Bull in pole position at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas. He lost the lead at the start, but kept the pressure on Hamilton. Then, Red Bull went aggressive, bringing him in early for his first pitstop.
With Perez close by, Hamilton couldn’t run long before stopping. After their second stop, Verstappen was ahead again, but Hamilton was closing on newer tires. Hamilton closed in, but Verstappen had treated this set of tires gently, keeping enough life in them to soak up the pressure from Hamilton and take a crucial win amidst the amazing championship fight.
2020 70th Anniversary Grand Prix
In 2020, the Mercedes W11 was dominant. But Verstappen took the RB16 to places it shouldn’t have been. The Dutchman was the only driver who could keep them in sight. Amid the closed-doors COVID season, Verstappen fought hard in the British summer heat to push Mercedes over the edge thanks to some soft tire compounds.
Verstappen started the race on hard tires, with Mercedes on softer compounds and the Red Bull stuck to the W11s like glue. After the Mercedes pit, Verstappen carried on, yet he was still faster than them despite the older tires. He jumped Hamilton at his pitstop and got past Valtteri Bottas about four corners after he came out of the pits, and from that moment on, the race was his.
2021 Mexican Grand Prix
While this was an easy win for Verstappen, he had to pass two Mercedes at the start after qualifying in third behind them. The pressure was on Verstappen with his first real attempt at a world title. As the Mercedes tried to work together to hold him off, Verstappen took the slipstream from the pair of them as they barreled into turn one.
Verstappen braked super, super late, drove around the outside of Mercedes, and kept the car on the track. Behind him, Mercedes race imploded with Valtteri Bottas spun around by Daniel Ricciardo. Verstappen was approaching the peak of his powers, and this bold and almost unbelievable overtake could be the best of his career.
2023 Japanese Grand Prix
Verstappen and Red Bull were both humbled at the previous race in Singapore as the RB19 couldn’t get into the right window around the tricky street circuit. With Verstappen finishing fifth and Perez eighth, Red Bull lost out to Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in their only defeat that season.
But Verstappen wanted to put the ultimate smackdown on the field in the next race at Suzuka. He took pole position with a mighty lap, dominating qualifying. In the race, despite a sluggish start, he drove away from the chasing McLaren pair of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris to win by nearly 20 seconds. It was Verstappen at his best and the perfect response to the Singapore defeat.
2018 Mexican Grand Prix
With Red Bull only able to fight Mercedes and Ferrari at specific points in 2018, the Mexican Grand Prix was Verstappen’s last chance to become F1’s youngest-ever pole-sitter. He had the pace all weekend, but teammate Daniel Ricciardo pipped him in qualifying, leaving Verstappen frustrated in P2.
But he immediately fixed that, as he took the lead at the start and never looked back. Verstappen became a master of the Mexican circuit after winning the race in 2017, and he has since gone on to add another three victories to his name at the venue.
2022 Belgian Grand Prix
The 2022 Belgian Grand Prix likely erased any doubts anyone had about the direction of that year’s championship. Verstappen and main rival Leclerc had grid penalties for new engine components going into the race. That didn’t stop Verstappen from smashing qualifying by over six-tenths of a second from his nearest rival.
The Dutchman started the race in 14th place and made up two places at the start. After an early safety car, he tore through the field into the podium by lap eight of 44. Less than 20 laps into the race, he was in the lead and had made his soft tires last longer than Perez’s medium tires despite passing 13 other cars. Verstappen drove off into the distance, taking one of the most emphatic wins of his career. This on a weekend where he had looked unstoppable.
2023 Monaco Grand Prix Qualifying
The 2023 Monaco Grand Prix was one of the few times the Red Bull RB19 wasn’t quite in the right operating window. But Verstappen was able to put it in the mix in qualifying. Yet on the final runs in Q3 for pole position, Verstappen was over a tenth of a second down from the Aston Martin of pole position. After two sectors on his final lap, he was still a couple of tenths down.
Yet, in the final sector, he was incredible. He skimmed the barriers, clipped the walls, and rocketed to pole position, making up around four-tenths of a second. He snatched pole position at the death in one of the best qualifying performances of his career. This, more than any other performance, showed the class of Verstappen.
2023 Dutch Grand Prix
Verstappen came into the 2023 Dutch Grand Prix as the clear favorite, thanks to his dominance that year and his previous two wins at Zandvoort. Yet despite taking pole position, rain on lap one threatened to undo his chances. The home hero lost the lead early to teammate Perez, who stopped for intermediate tires earlier.
Verstappen had to fight back up to second, and he was around 11 seconds behind Perez. But he took chunks of his teammate’s lead by as much as three seconds a lap. After pitting a lap before for dry tires, he was back in front. Rain fell later in the race and caused a red flag. But Verstappen wasn’t phased, taking one of the best wins of his career to make it nine in a row in 2023. He was calm, collected, and picked his moments after losing the lead. Not even the heavy rain could stop Verstappen.
2019 Austrian Grand Prix
The 2019 Austrian Grand Prix was the first non-Mercedes win of the season. It was also Verstappen’s first of three that year and Honda’s first since returning to F1 in 2015. Verstappen started the race in second place but fell to seventh after a poor start, but his comeback drive was one of his most impressive and made the race a thriller.
Verstappen cut through the field, keeping his tires in as good condition as possible while dropping no more than 15 seconds behind race leader Charles Leclerc. After his last pitstop, Verstappen was flying, passing Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas, and lunging down Leclerc’s inside. He drove on to victory, laying down a marker for what would come from himself in the coming years.
2015 United States Grand Prix
During his debut season with Toro Rosso, Verstappen proved the doubters wrong, who thought at 17 years old he was too young for F1. This was most evident at the United States Grand Prix, the most chaotic of the year with mixed conditions, a delayed qualifying, and a mighty battle for the lead.
In his Toro Rosso, with a slower Renault engine in the back, Verstappen fought hard through the field and, at one point, looked like he would get a maiden podium before he finished in 4th place. This was his joint-best result of the season and the best drive of his impressive career up to that point.
2019 Brazilian Grand Prix
The 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix was the first race where we really saw Verstappen go wheel-to-wheel with future title rival Lewis Hamilton. Verstappen put the Red Bull in pole position, his second and Honda’s second since its return, and had to fight hard to win.
Verstappen lost the lead at the first pit stops but reclaimed it the following lap with a bold move at turn one. After a late safety car, Verstappen pitted for fresh tires, but Hamilton did not, yet by the first turn after the restart, Verstappen was back in front. As chaos ensued behind him, Verstappen drove to his third win of the year, showing Mercedes and Hamilton precisely what they would have to fight against in 2021.
