The Formula 1 records no one is likely to wrestle from Max Verstappen

Many Formula 1 fans are only seeing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Max Verstappen's historic run of success in the sport.

For those who choose to focus on the 'boring' and disregard the last eight years forget that the Dutchman has been racing in F1 since 2015. He won his first race in May 2016 after being drafted to Red Bull from Toro Rosso (now AlphaTauri) just five races into the season.

Fewer, perhaps, will recall how the next few years were hits and misses for Red Bull as they tried to catch up to the mighty Mercedes and usurp Ferrari as the second-best team.

Sadly, in 2023, the focus is (wrongly) on Verstappen and Red Bull's dominance dulling the sport, instead of celebrating that they could get right what so many teams got wrong.

READ | History rewritten as Max Verstapp-ten's 10th win breaks decade-old record

And then you get people within F1 like Toto Wolff, Mercedes team boss and one of the sport's most opinionated personalities, who brushes the 25-year-old's achievement off the table with snarly and churlish remarks.

"I don't know whether [Max] cares about the record," Wolff said in Italy after Verstappen won his record-breaking tenth win in a row.

"It's not something that would be important for me, any of those numbers. It's for Wikipedia, nobody reads that anyway."

An incredible year

Verstappen will be the first to admit that racing alone at the front is not much fun. He alluded to it when, after the Italian Grand Prix, he said it was fun duelling with Ferrari's Carlos Sainz for the race lead on Sunday.

Admittedly, seeing the scrap between them and how Verstappen had to fight was fun.

Unsurprisingly, he managed to take the lead and win, and it is proof of the strong groundwork he and Red Bull have been