Nearing Ayrton Senna’s Glorious Record, Max Verstappen’s Untouchable Form Gets the Highest Level of F1 Comparisons

107 overtakes, but none for the lead in the circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya! After a dominant victory in Monte Carlo, Max Verstappen picked up from where he left off last weekend. He came into this weekend with a circuit that had changed, and rivals who brought upgrades, and yet still the Red Bull in Verstappen’s hands looked so dominant than the rest. As a result, Verstappen put in a superb lap of 1:12.272s to seal his fourth pole position of the year on the tricky rain-fallen track. And one day later, it looked like the reigning world champion went into a planet of his own.

In an absolutely thrilling Spanish Grand Prix, Max Verstappen dominated yet again at the peak of his powers in a perfect car, on a perfect day. Starting the race from the pole position, the Dutchman led all 66 laps to take his seventh victory of the season, making it a total of 40 F1 career wins. This stunning feat put the 2x world champion just one win away from Ayrton Senna’s glorious record of 41 Grand Prix wins. But it doesn’t end here for the man at the peak of his form! Verstappen also achieved a Grand Slam in Barcelona for the third time in his career- another rare feat in F1. However, while achieving all this, Verstappen made it look like child’s play. 

But according to Red Bull Veteran David Coulthard, Max Verstappen’s stunning feat deserved a celebration. He was very pleased with the Red Bull driver’s performance and said, as quoted by F1Maximaal, “What Max has shown in Barcelona is phenomenal and I think we can easily put him on a par with the dominant weekends of Schumacher, Senna, and Hamilton, for example. He looks like a machine at the moment.” [Translated via Google]

Read More: “An Old Married Couple”: Max Verstappen’s Stubborn Spanish GP Act Probes Christian Horner To Deem him With a Crazy Analogy

With Max Verstappen extending his championship lead race after race, the subject comes down to: ‘What are the chances of Sergio Perez in the Championship battle?’

The title battle is already over if it ever started

After Sergio Perez won in Baku, he reduced Championship leader Max Verstappen‘s lead to just 6 points and appeared as a legitimate title contender. However, a series of disasters followed, denting the Mexican’s title hopes beyond recovery. Going into Monaco GP, Perez was just 14 points adrift of Verstappen, and what better chance for ‘the king of streets’ to win his place at the top of the driver’s table? However, Perez crashed, binning his chance, and raising questions about his capabilities to challenge the reigning world champion. And Perez’s misfortune followed him to Spain, as he finished P4 after making a shock exit in round 2 of qualifying. 

Analyzing Perez’s unconfident performance in Spain, and his inability to challenge the Mercedes duo before him in P2 and P3, two analysts unanimously agreed that the title fight is already over. “Sergio Pérez was never really a threat to Max, in my opinion. You can only really fight a title fight towards the end of the season, then it gets really exciting, only around September or October’, Webber explains. ‘You have to earn those points now, and nobody gets them except Max. So it looks like the title fight is already over, or maybe it never really started,” said Mark Webber, former F1 driver. And David Coulthard agreed. [Translated via Google]

Watch this story: “Will Daniel Ricciardo Get Swapped in for Sergio Perez at Red Bull?”

After the Spanish Grand Prix, championship leader Max Verstappen further stretched his lead to 53 points, making it a total of 170.