HONDA The Power of Dreams

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who dominated last season, built upon his momentum and unstoppable form into the 2023 season. In the early stages, Verstappen won the season opener, teammate Sergio Pérez took Round 2, Verstappen Round 3, and Pérez Round 4. Red Bull achieved a one-two finish in three of the first four races, establishing its dominance.

Honda reorganized its structure in 2022, establishing Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) as a specialized corporation responsible for all of Honda’s motorsports activities, consolidating not only its motorcycle racing operations but also its car racing efforts. The technical partnership with Red Bull Powertrains (RBPT) was extended through 2025, the final year of the current power unit (PU) regulations, with HRC designated to manage. While development for performance enhancements was frozen under the 2022 homologation rules, HRC maximized the PU’s potential through reliability improvements and on-track tuning, supporting the dominant Red Bull team.

AlphaTauri, sharing the same PUs, aimed to recover from the previous year’s struggles but saw little progress in improving their car, enduring a tough start to the season. Yuki Tsunoda entered his third year with the team, joined by Nick de Vries as his teammate. De Vries scored an 8th-place finish in Round 4, but the team continued to struggle from the beginning.

In Round 5, Miami, an unexpected situation struck Verstappen in qualifying. Having advanced to Q3, Verstappen made a mistake on his first attempt at securing pole. As he prepared for his second hot lap, an accident involving another car interrupted the session with a red flag. Qualifying ended there, leaving Verstappen with no recorded time and a 9th place grid. Meanwhile, Perez, who had won both the sprint and race in the prvious round, took pole position. Perez had closed the gap to championship leader Verstappen to just six points.

In the race, where a one-stop strategy was expected, Verstappen, starting from the back, opted for hard tires at the start while many others chose mediums. Despite the hard tires, Verstappen outpaced the medium-tire field. Although briefly dropping to 10th after the start, Verstappen recovered his position within the opening lap. By Lap 2, he was up to 8th. On the straight of Lap 4, he overtook two cars to move into 6th. He continued climbing positions, reaching 4th by Lap 9. Watching the front-runners pit for tire changes, he took the lead on Lap 20. Verstappen switched from hard to medium tires late in the race on Lap 45. After pitting, he settled behind Perez, who was in the lead.

The pace difference between Perez on worn hard tires and Verstappen on fresh mediums was clear. Verstappen easily passed Perez at Turn 1 on Lap 48 to reclaim the lead, then extended his advantage to take the checkered flag. Verstappen had overcome his qualifying setback to secure his third win of the season. Perez finished second, giving Red Bull their fourth 1-2 of the season but, the title battle with Perez, which had been almost evenly matched up to this point, shifted decisively in Verstappen’s favor.

Round 6, the Emilia Romagna GP was canceled due to severe local flooding, reducing the 2023 season to 22 races. Max Verstappen had accumulated seven consecutive wins from Round 7, Monaco, to Round 12, Hungary. Red Bull reached the mid-point of the season, Round 13, the Belgian GP, with a perfect 11-race winning streak since the season opener.

Having a sprint race, the Emilia Romagna GP had only one Free Practice session, on Friday. Heavy rain in the morning meant few laps were completed by any car during this session. Conditions improved by the afternoon qualifying session, allowing dry tire hot laps from Q2 onwards. Verstappen, on his winning streak, was already confirmed to start five grid positions down due to a gearbox change. Despite this, he set the fastest lap in Q3 for the first time in two races. On following day, Verstappen took pole in Sprint Qualifying, with the Sprint race in the afternoon, which was held under wet conditions. After the safety car led the field for five of the scheduled 15 laps, the sprint race was shortened to 11 laps. After passing McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who had taken the lead after changing tires from wet to intermediates after the race began, on the Kemmel Straight on Lap 6, Verstappen cruised to victory without incident.

The race started under dry conditions. Starting sixth, Verstappen moved up to fourth by the end of Lap 1, then effortlessly moved up on laps 6 and 9 to take second place. His teammate Sergio Pérez, leading the race, pitted for a tire change on Lap 13. Verstappen pitted the following lap, rejoining in second. With superior pace, Verstappen overtook Perez on Lap 17 for the lead. Rain started mid-race, but Verstappen’s dominance was unshakable. He ultimately won by a commanding 22-second margin over Perez, extending his winning streak to eight.

This was Red Bull’s fourth 1-2 finish, the first since Round 5, Miami and the team completed the first half of the season with a perfect 12 wins from 12 races. This winning surpassed the previous record of 11 consecutive wins set by McLaren Honda in 1988. Verstappen claimed 10 of those 12 victories, making his third consecutive Drivers’ Championship title all but certain.

The summer break brought no major shifts in power dynamics. In Round 14, the Dutch GP, Max Verstappen claimed his third consecutive home Grand Prix victory. He then won the following race in Italy, breaking Sebastian Vettel’s 2013 record for consecutive wins in a season, setting a new record of ten straight wins. Red Bull’s winning streak also continued, and the team began to look unbeatable for the entire season.

However, Round 16, the Singapore GP on the Marina Bay street circuit, proved to be a completely different challenge for Red Bull. Ferrari set the fastest times in all three free practice sessions, while both Red Bull cars struggled with the cars’ behavior and were unable to replicate their familiar domination. While the Red Bull RB19 had shown dominating speed in high- and medium-speed turns, its performance in low-speed turns was less impressive. Concerns about its instability over bumps and curbs on the rough street circuit became dramatically apparent. Qualifying ended in a disastrous double Q2 elimination for both cars. Verstappen qualified 11th and Sergio Pérez 13th.

Yet, Red Bull improved the setup for the race and attempted to turn the tables with a long-run strategy on hard tires. Staying out during the safety car period on Lap 19 temporarily improved their positions, but they could not match the pace of the other drivers who pitted for fresh tires. By the time they completed their pit stops late in the race, the Red Bulls had dropped positions significantly. They fought back on medium tires, but Verstappen’s 5th place finish and Perez 8th was the best they could manage. The best result for Honda-powered cars came from Liam Lawson, making his F1 debut with AlphaTauri as a replacement for the injured Daniel Ricciardo. In only his third F1 race, Lawson advanced to Q3 in qualifying to claim 10th place grid, and finished 9th place in the race, earning his first points.

Red Bull’s winning streak, which had stood at 15 races including the final race of the previous season, came to an end. Its unprecedented bid for a perfect season was stopped in Singapore. Verstappen'’ own winning streak also ended at 10, though his position on the verge of securing a third consecutive championship title remained unchanged.

Although Red Bull and Max Verstappen’s winning streak stopped in Singapore, they regained their dominating speed and strength in Round 17, Japan, for back-to-back victories at Suzuka, and clinched the Constructors’ Championship for Red Bull. In Round 18, Qatar, Verstappen claimed his third consecutive championship by winning the sprint race. He also won the race, and extended his winning streak to six races by Round 22, the Las Vegas GP, at which Sergio Pérez secured second place in the drivers’ standings. The Red Bull team had achieved a complete sweep before the final round.

As the season drew to a close, challengers began to emerge, and Red Bull’s advantage was not as strong as it had been earlier in the season. Nevertheless, Verstappen drove at a different level, securing his 12th pole position of the season for the final race. Perez had his qualifying time disqualified for exceeding track limits, leaving him in 9th place on the grid. The spotlight then fell on AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda, who achieved his career-best qualifying position of 6th. AlphaTauri had endured another challenging season with inconsistent car behavior, much like the previous year. However, a new management structure implemented mid-season gradually improved the car’s performance. This progress paid off in the final race. Tsunoda boldly executed a one-stop strategy, becoming the lap leader for the first time in his career and finishing in 8th place. He also earned Driver of the Day honors and dedicated this strong result at Abu Dhabi to team principal Franz Tost, who was stepping down.

Symbolizing the season so far, Verstappen maintained the lead from pole position. He cruised comfortably at the front, only relinquishing the top spot during his two pit stops, ultimately securing victory. He set a new personal record with 19 wins, capping a legendary season. Red Bull also broke the record for most wins in a season with 21 victories out of 22 races. This year, Verstappen and Red Bull set new records for most wins in a season, consecutive wins, and highest win percentage. Verstappen set numerous new records, including most wins from pole and most laps led. He also achieved a 100% race completion rate for the season and finished in the points in every race. The high performance and reliability of the Honda RBPTH001 power unit significantly contributed to these monumental achievements.