AUSTIN, Texas — The Formula One season effectively ended October 7 when Max Verstappen clinched his third consecutive F1 championship with six races left. The closest driver in the standings is his Red Bull Racing teammate Sergio Perez.
While the championship chase is essentially over, the party is just getting started for Red Bull Racing, which will be taking a worldwide victory lap from Austin this weekend to Mexico to Brazil to Las Vegas and wrapping up in Abu Dhabi at the end of November.
Not only has Verstappen clinched his third straight F1 title, but Red Bull Racing has won all but one race this season. After Verstappen and Perez went back and forth, winning two races each through the first four, Verstappen won a record 10 straight races from May through September. No F1 team has ever gone undefeated in a season. McLaren won 15 out of 16 in 1988 but Red Bull Racing could be the first team to finish the season with less than three losses in a season featuring more than 16 races.
Red Bull Racing invited The Messenger to experience the first leg of their victory tour at the United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin. Verstappen and Perez stopped by the hospitality suite on Saturday morning to talk to fans, media and sponsors who were getting a head start on pounding Red Bull vodkas before the sprint shootout. The emcee for the event was Blake Hinsey, who was Red Bull Racing’s senior performance engineer before becoming one of the sport’s best content creators.
Hinsey actually worked directly with Verstappen when the team wasn’t dominating Formula One as it has for the past three seasons. Verstappen jokingly asked the crowd, “Is he doing well so far? Because he wasn’t doing so well when he was with me in racing.”
The two shared a hug after the joke because Hinsey promised Verstappen he would become one of the best drivers in the sport one day.
A look inside the @redbullracing suite at the @f1 #USGP at @COTA. pic.twitter.com/8lLQcMYnrG
— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) October 21, 2023
“I think what we’re seeing this season from Max and Red Bull this season is one of the most dominant cars in history and also one of the most talented drivers in history,” Hinsey told The Messenger. “You combine both of those and the team has won 16 out of 17 races this season and Max with his three driver’s championships in a row, that is the recipe you want. You want consistency, you want top performing drivers and the best performing cars on the grid.”
While Verstappen is enjoying the afterglow of his third straight championship, Perez, who is from Guadalajara, Mexico, is in second place. He's the undisputed fan favorite in Austin and will be the overwhelming fan favorite at next weekend's Mexico City Grand Prix.
“It’s great to see so many fans supporting me,” Perez said. “I really feel at home. I really feel like Austin and Mexico are my two home races. I think Las Vegas as well. Getting closer to home is always nice.”
The food choices get more familiar when Perez gets closer to home, so he was asked to pick his favorite between Mexican, Tex-Mex and Texas barbecue. He smiled and answered, “I have to go with Mexican. No Tex-Mex.”
Hinsey left Red Bull Racing during the pandemic and has been an F1 content creator with over 115,000 YouTube subscribers. He couldn’t help but smile as he looked at a recently unveiled Red Bull can with Verstappen and Perez on it as he walked around a hospitality suite outfitted with a $120,000 dining table and $32,000 end tables, which are for sale when the race is over. The Circuit of the Americas in Austin is expected to have a three-day attendance of about 450,000, which is something the Texas native could not have imagined when he came to the race a decade ago.
“Coming back to the Circuit of the Americas and see this event grow from 2012 all the way to where it is now,” Hinsey said. “The popularity of the sport is so cool to see. When I first started coming out here my friends and family didn’t know about Formula One being in America and now it’s all anyone talks about. It’s so cool seeing that.”