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Max Verstappen leads the 2023 F1 championship by 53 points, a sizeable advantage over his stablemate Sergio Perez. He's accrued this lead in just seven races and the smart money is on him only increasing this lead by the time this season comes to an end.
The first non-Red Bull driver in the championship is a whopping 71 points behind Max Verstappen. That is just a snapshot of the kind of dominance on showcase this season. The worst finish for Verstappen in a Grand Prix this season has been P2 and this is despite multiple issues faced by him during a race weekend.
The ominous nature of the Red Bull thread has even made quite a few F1 pundits claim that Max Verstappen is inevitable. Amongst all of this though, the last race in Barcelona drew an exasperated reaction from a few pundits.
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One prominent F1 broadcaster said the race in Barcelona was "pathetic" while reviewing it.
Apart from pundits, a chunk of F1 fans have also been left disappointed and many have termed the races to be boring. And there's not too much you can say to argue against them.
Max Verstappen has made Formula 1 a bit boring in 2023.
Now this is not a hit piece on the Red Bull driver or some kind of criticism. On the contrary, this piece will outline the kind of impact Verstappen's brilliance has had on the sport.
Let's take a look at the factors that help make a season engaging and how Max Verstappen's brilliance seems to have systematically taken all of those away.
Aspects of an engaging F1 season
#1 A title fight
One of the key aspects of an interesting and engaging season is a title fight.
Two drivers, either from the same or different teams fighting it out tooth and nail for the top honors is something every F1 fan looks forward to. This was precisely what made the 2014 and 2016 seasons worth watching when Mercedes was at the height of its dominance as the title battles went down to the wire.
For the 2023 F1 season, it is safe to say that the title fight is already decided with Max Verstappen just in a different league to his teammate. What made the Mercedes dominance era somewhat bearable was the fact that Lewis Hamilton wasn't able to run away with the title against his teammates in 2014 and 2016.
Verstappen, on the other hand, has just decimated Sergio Perez to such an extent that a title battle does not appear to even be a remote possibility.
#2 Competition
The 2022 F1 season was a dominant one for Red Bull as the team won 17 of the 22 races. Having said that, no one can claim that the team did not have to fight for a major chunk of those wins.
Even in the second half of the season where the team won every race except one, it's not as if all the races were straightforward. Be it Mexico, Zandvoort, Singapore, or Austin, every race win was earned after stiff competition and those battles kept the fans intrigued.
This season, there's just no competition for Max Verstappen. The Red Bull driver started a race in P9 this season and still won it without breaking a sweat. When you have superiority of this kind over the field, the result is almost an eventuality and it becomes hard to get excited for a race.
#3 Unpredictability
Something that was notable during both Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel's dominant years was the element of unpredictability that played a role. Going into a weekend, it was not a foregone conclusion that the duo were going to win the race.
In Hamilton's case, Nico Rosberg and Valtteri Bottas challenged him on multiple occasions. While Bottas was arguably a step down from Rosberg, he still had his moments. Both, on their day and when everything aligned, could take on Hamilton and beat him.
At Red Bull this season, the only time Sergio Perez beat Max Verstappen in a straight fight was in Baku this season. Just to put things into context, in their third year of partnership, there has been only one race where Perez has got the better of Verstappen.
When you have such extreme dominance from the lead driver, the second driver tends to get left behind in a hapless situation. More importantly, it kills the only challenge that could possibly be there for Verstappen given the inability of other cars to challenge Red Bull.
#4 Drama/Action/Controversy
Now, we could have some drama this season in the second half when the cost cap adherence reports are released. Until then, there is unlikely to be any kind of drama or a hook to keep the fans engaged.
Additionally, both Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen have stayed cordial. This is vastly unlike the Nico Rosberg-Lewis Hamilton combo where the two drivers almost became mortal enemies.
There's also hardly any major development within the sport that could keep the fans interested. In what appears to be an almost hopeless speculation, tons of articles have been already written about possible driver transfers. However, even the teams have questioned the sources of such information.
On almost every metric, the 2023 F1 season has been too vanilla with not much happening on and off the track.
#5 The 'favorite driver' factor
Now, while many would disagree with this, but Max Verstappen is not the biggest star in F1. He's got a strong following but primarily in terms of numbers, it is comparable to the likes of Charles Leclerc, Fernando Alonso, and Lando Norris.
On the other hand, the man with almost three times Verstappen's following, Lewis Hamilton, continues to drive a car not capable enough to fight for the title.
If we just do simple mathematics here, here is the sum of followers on Instagram and Twitter for these drivers:
- Lewis Hamilton: 42 million
- Max Verstappen: 13.1 million
- Fernando Alonso: 9.4 million
- Charles Leclerc: 13.9 million
- Lando Norris: 8.5 million
In the last decade of Mercedes dominance from 2014 to 2021, these 42 million fans would religiously watch Lewis Hamilton compete for wins or titles. The last two seasons have seen none of that which likely means a portion of these fans may not be tuning in at all.
Hence, a loss of viewership has been noticed in quite a few races this season.
Max Verstappen is too far ahead of everyone on the grid this season
The worst thing that can happen in our sport is if one of the elite drivers on the F1 grid gets a car that is far better than anything else on the grid. This happened with Michael Schumacher in the early 2000s, Sebastian Vettel in the 2010s, Lewis Hamilton from 2014 onwards, and now with Max Verstappen.
The problem with Verstappen right now is that he's not only an elite driver. The man is simply better than everyone on the grid. Arguably other than his short temper or his habit to be too demanding from the teams, he does not have too many weaknesses.
Both Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton could have races where their teammates were better than them. However, this has happened only once in two-and-a-half seasons for Max Verstappen.
Unfortunately for F1, the best car has been given to a metronomically consistent driver, who does not make any mistakes and is just levels above everybody else.
When you have that kind of a generational talent, and you give him the best car in Red Bull, you can just forget about anybody else having any chance. Even before you start a race weekend, the smart money is on Max Verstappen to win and most of the time, he has done just that.
So much so, that Formula 1 has become predictable and it's all because of one man.
In essence, F1 has become a boring sport and Max Verstappen's excellence holds a sizeable amount of blame for this.
