Verstappen lowers expectations for 2024 F1 season: '10 wins are fine too'

Ahead of the 2023 Formula 1 season, it was widely believed that Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing's performance from the previous year would be hard to top. Yet they succeeded, in convincing fashion. Having won 19 out of 22 races this year, the three-time world champion does expect the competition to get closer next year.

In the 2022 F1 season, Verstappen won 15 races, breaking Sebastian Vettel's record. It was assumed that this feat could not be matched easily, but the Dutchman proved once again what he was capable of a year later. Winning 19 races himself, the tally for Red Bull stands at 21 out of 22 races.

That near-perfect performance will - again - be hard to top, the three-time world champion realises. "Realistically, of course, it can't be much better than what we have achieved. But I think it's not always about trying to win 20 races. It's also about just trying to find improvements within yourself, within the car," he explained at the FIA Prize Giving Gala to GPblog and others.

He continued: "If that means next year, we have improved the car and we can fight for the championship again, but you only win 10 races, that's also fine. It's just been also that the competition around us has been quite up and down. One weekend it was this team and the other week it was another team. So. I expect next year people are learning a lot with this new regulation as well, that it actually will be quite a bit closer."