- Verstappen has been producing scarcely believable results in a faltering car
- If he wins a fourth world title this year, it would be his most majestic accolade
Forget the caterwauling over who was ahead at the apex of Turn 12 in Austin last Sunday – Max Verstappen, as it happens, while Lando Norris gained an advantage off the track; case closed – but here was a performance that lifted the defending champion even further into the annals of Formula One greatness.
This is the toughest title fight Verstappen has faced because it involves a minimally six month-long rearguard action in a faltering Red Bull, and it is showcasing the range of his abilities like never before.
Yes, there was his extraordinary exploitation of the maverick interpretation of the safety car rules in Abu Dhabi in 2021 as he won the first of his three world championships. Leaving aside the madness of that controversial night, he pounced on an unexpecting Lewis Hamilton with a boldness that is his trademark. If Hamilton was robbed, Verstappen’s brilliance on the night, and over the season, did part of the mugging.
The next two years were straightforward enough for Verstappen. His Red Bull was the supreme car of the field. Last year it was a magic carpet. Even here he was not flattered by his superior equipment; he made devastating use of it. Why if it were so simple had nobody ever won 10 successive races in 73 years of Formula One when driving similarly untouchable cars?
The statistics underline his dominance. In 2022, he scored 454 points to team-mate Sergio Perez‘s 305. Perez lay only third in the standings. In 2023, he scored more than double Perez’s total, 575 to 285. Incidentally, going back to 2021, Perez finished fourth in the championship, Verstappen amassing 395.5 against the Mexican’s 190.
Perez, of course, is a decent driver but a No 2. Still, the disparity between the pair emphatically disproves the glib notion that it is ‘all down to the car’. This year’s evidence in the Verstappen-Perez stakes puts Max 204 points ahead of his eighth-placed partner.
After a blistering start, Red Bull lost their way. The Christian Horner investigation was a distraction. Adrian Newey, the greatest designer the sport has known, announced his departure. Max’s father Jos was in open dispute with Horner. And, surely at least partly a result of off-stage noise, the car was suddenly a dog. As Verstappen said: ‘It’s all over the place with the balance.’
There was a lot of scratching of heads but precious few answers. Red Bull were stumped. McLaren, meanwhile, were firing a silver bullet. An upgrade in Miami in May positioned them as the emerging best car out there. Huge credit to them for performing an engineering revolution.
Despite all this Verstappen cranked out scarcely believe results. He no longer possessed the weapon he had driven to victories in four of the first five races, plus a sprint win in China and two fastest laps, and to seven triumphs in the first 10 rounds. Since his last win in Spain on June 23, he has defended his lead as nobody else currently could have done, finishing fifth, second, fifth, fourth, second, sixth, fifth, second and third. Perez’s record over the same stretch: seventh, 17th, seventh, seventh, sixth, eighth, 17th, 10th, seventh.
If you think Perez’s lack of form makes him an unchallenging yardstick, the fact Verstappen’s nearest pursuer, Norris in the usually top-of-class McLaren, is still 57 points back, with 146 remaining, tells you just how resilient Verstappen has been (as well as how Norris and his team have not seized their chance as adroitly as they might have done). Norris’s comparative results, for the record, are 20th (following a collision with Verstappen), third, second, fifth, first, third, fourth, first, fourth.
We witnessed last Sunday two glaring examples of the Verstappen repertoire: the forceful start that took him ahead of Norris and then the repelling of his title rival lap after lap in a slower car and on older rubber. This was as well as he has ever driven, defiance and race-craft in perfect harmony.
If you swapped the pair over and gave Verstappen the McLaren and Norris the Red Bull, who would be world champion this year? I do not mean to be disrespectful to Lando, who is a considerable talent if not as ferocious as his pal, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the answer is obvious.
If Verstappen delivers his fourth world title this year, it would be his most majestic accolade yet.
Alonso reaches 400 Grand Prix landmark
A remarkable feature of Fernando Alonso’s achievement in becoming the first driver to enter 400 grands prix, when he races in Mexico this weekend, is that he won his two world championships when nobody on the grid now was on it then.
It is 18 years since that second triumph with Renault, a season before Lewis Hamilton entered the scene. Alonso’s talent deserved more title successes in the intervening aeons.
Stewarding pool beats having a permanent panel
A lack of consistency is the go-to cry of any combatant in sport who feels aggrieved by officialdom’s adjudications. Lando Norris’s complaints at the stewarding in Austin is a case in point.
These criticisms give rise to intermittent calls for the FIA to introduce permanent stewards. Those of us with longer memories immediately think be careful what you wish for.
This approach was tried in the mid-Noughties. A tall, slim, grey English solicitor of probity called Tony Scott Andrews was appointed permanent steward. It was believed FIA president Max Mosley thought him too ponderous and that experiment foundered.
Next came Alan Donnelly, Mosley’s advisor, as non-voting chairman of the stewards, tasked with speeding up the process. The teams ended up calling for him to go.
Now there is a pool of some two dozen stewards over the 24-race season. A four-man panel sit under an experienced chairman at each race. One member is a driver steward, another a former F1 driver, plus an international steward and a steward from the country staging the race.
One of the international stewards will sit at back-to-back races for continuity, allowing drivers to air concerns from the previous race with a relevant party.
Is it a perfect scenario? Who knows, but it beats a permanent panel, not least for a driver who might think the stewards have it in for him, inescapably week in, week out.
Autosport Awards undergoes brave revamp
It was where Lewis Hamilton, a champion karter aged 10 and wearing a borrowed green velvet dinner jacket, asked Ron Dennis if he could drive for McLaren. No promises on that one now, he was told.
We are talking about the annual shindig for the great and good of Formula One, the Autosport Awards at the Grosvenor House.
But in a brave revamp, the event is moving from Park Lane to the Roundhouse in Camden, with a smattering of fans admitted for the first time. And its customary post-race slot in December is swapped for January 29 as a precursor to the new season.
Will the top drivers want to go, though? When Covid pushed the event back into the New Year, drivers who would have partied at the end of their season decided to swerve it because they were well into their abstemious preparations for the next campaign. A warning there.
The prestigious Grosvenor House hotel has been a much-loved home for the dinner, though it hasn’t always won rave reviews. In 2008, Sky’s leading pundit Martin Brundle turned food critic as he presented one of the rather too many awards.
‘I’m still picking the lamb out of my teeth,’ he said. ‘Wasn’t that the worst meal we’ve ever been served at the Grosvenor House?’
