He may have been eliminated from winning the 2026 Formula 1 world championship with five races remaining on the schedule, matching his earliest elimination since his first full season with Red Bull in 2017, but Max Verstappen has been on a tear over the second half of the season.
His Mexico City Grand Prix victory at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez was his third win in the four most recent races, and it was his seventh consecutive podium finish. Excluding two DNFs, he hasn't finished off of the podium since starting the year with just one podium result in the first seven races, and the 23-race season is now 19 races old.
Despite being 119 points behind world champion Kimi Antonelli after Antonelli clinched his first world title, Verstappen is already classified as the betting favorite to win the 2027 world championship.
But whether he's able to become a five-time world champion next year or not, he's already doing something that no driver in Formula 1 history has ever done.
Max Verstappen adds to this untouchable record, yet again
Verstappen's victory on Sunday was his 74th career victory and his 20th since the end of the 2023 season, which was Red Bull's most recent constructor championship-winning season. Verstappen also had 20 career wins entering the 2022 season, which was Red Bull's first constructor championship-winning season since he arrived at the team in 2016.
That gives Verstappen 40 victories in seasons during which his team did not win the constructor championship. Michael Schumacher is the only other driver with more than 21, and Verstappen broke his previous record of 32 late in the 2025 season.
Perhaps the more impressive part is that Verstappen's 2024 world championship was the first for a driver competing for a team other than one of the top two in the constructor world championship since Nelson Piquet won it in 1983.
In fact, with Red Bull effectively (albeit not yet mathematically) out of the running for P2 in this year's constructor championship battle as well, his Mexico City Grand Prix win will have been his 20th since 2024 alone in a season during which his team did not finish in the top two.
Verstappen's eight wins from 2016 to 2019 also came in such seasons, giving him 28 wins now in seasons during which his team was not a top two finisher in the constructor standings.
For some perspective, of Schumacher's 91 career wins, only three came in such seasons.
Only seven other drivers in F1 history have ever even won 28 races period, and aside from Verstappen and Schumacher, the most victories in a non-constructor championship-winning season is 21 by Alain Prost. Only five of Prost's wins came in seasons during which his team did not finish in the top two in the constructor standings.
Verstappen, again, now has 28. Nobody else is even close, and nobody else will probably ever be close.
Verstappen is set to go for 29 this weekend at Interlagos. The Sao Paulo Grand Prix is scheduled to take place on Sunday, November 8, with live coverage of the 2026 season's 20th race set to be provided by Apple TV.
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