Verstappen needs 19 more wins to equal Schumacher’s career total

Max Verstappen’s victory at Sepang on Sunday took his career total to 72 Grand Prix wins, 19 short of Michael Schumacher’s 91. Twenty more wins would put Verstappen ahead; Lewis Hamilton is the only driver above both, with 106.

The number 72 also puts Verstappen level with Schumacher in a different record: each has won 72 times for one team, Red Bull and Ferrari respectively. Hamilton leads the single-team list with 84 for Mercedes.

The comparisons by age and starts point in different directions. RacingNews365 says Verstappen had more than twice Schumacher’s win total by age 28, a gap it attributes largely to Verstappen’s earlier F1 debut and the modern calendar’s extra races. But across equivalent numbers of starts, Schumacher had more wins and a higher win percentage.

That makes Red Bull’s ability to remain competitive central to any pursuit. Formula 1’s technical analysis traces the foundation for Verstappen’s Sepang win to the RB22 upgrade unveiled in Baku about 10 days earlier, rather than to his pole position. Team principal Laurent Mekies says the upgrade was one part of wider work on the chassis and power unit. A RacingNews365 race analysis also points to Red Bull’s strategy: with the track still wet, it chose intermediates while Ferrari and McLaren started on slicks, and its three pit stops were cleanly executed.

Whether that form carries to other tracks is the next question. RacingNews365 technical expert Paolo Filisetti identifies Singapore’s very different layout as a test of whether the RB22’s gains transfer. After Sepang, Mekies said he thought Red Bull could fight for podiums in coming races, but that it was impossible to know whether the team could contend for wins at every circuit. He said learning from the current package remained the priority.

Verstappen’s Red Bull contract runs through 2030, offering a potential runway of at least four more full seasons to chase Schumacher’s total if the team remains competitive through the new technical regulations.