12 minute read
Max Verstappen
Karma chameleon
Few people are blessed with a destiny. Max Verstappen is one of them. Since becoming the youngest-ever Formula One winner at 18, he’s been heralded as ‘the chosen one’, destined for the World Championship crown. This year, he could achieve just that. And yet, where once he was impetuous, now he’s calmer than ever. This is the Zen of Max…
It’s one in the afternoon in the sovereign state
of Monaco, a little over 96 hours until lights out for the start of the most glamorous Grand Prix on the Formula One calendar. Pandemic restrictions mean this playground of the rich and famous on the French Riviera is operating at a fraction of the excess usually associated with motorsport’s loudest and proudest display of conspicuous consumption, but the tournament’s competitive levels are still peaking. For Max Verstappen, this weekend is a watershed moment – the 23-year-old Red Bull Racing driver is embroiled in the first real World Championship dogfight of his six-year career. But to see him standing at the quayside in the pretty harbour of the Port de Fontvielle, you wouldn’t know it. There’s an easy serenity about the Dutchman.
En route to eventual victory – six years after crashing spectacularly on his debut in the race, aged just 17 – Max Verstappen leads the field in the 2021 Monaco Grand Prix
GETTY IMAGES S erenity is not a trait you’d expect from a racing driver normally possessed of a no-holds-barred attitude that pays scant regard to the vaunted reputation of his rivals. Right from the start of his Formula One career, Verstappen has been a race winner – his first at the record-breaking age of 18 – and routinely tipped as a future champion. But it’s only this year that the stars have aligned to turn that burden of destiny into actual possibility.
Last year, new regulations shifted the playing field. After tyre supplier Pirelli highlighted worrying aerodynamic loads on the tyres of F1’s fastest-ever cars, bodywork changes were introduced to drastically reduce the downforce that 2021 cars would generate. Worst affected were seven-time Constructors’ Champions Mercedes and their seventime Drivers’ Champion Lewis Hamilton, the arcane alterations to floor dimensions and rear brake ducts carving away huge chunks of the Silver Arrows’ historic advantage and reeling the sport’s dominant force within touching distance.
For Verstappen’s team, the changes were more benign, and a redesigned power unit from engine supplier Honda morphed Red Bull Racing’s 2020 RB16 car from a machine routinely capable of delivering Verstappen to the podium – but rarely to the top step – into a match for Mercedes in poise, power and pace. And yet, while Verstappen now wields a giant-killing weapon seemingly capable of toppling the almighty Hamilton, the first few races of the season have left the Red Bull driver trailing the reigning champion by 14 points. At the season opener in Bahrain, Verstappen signalled his intent by blazing into pole position, only to be strategically mugged in the race by the wily Hamilton, who tempted the younger driver into a fluffed late overtake that guaranteed the Brit victory. Verstappen fought back at the next round in Imola, shoulderbarging pole-sitter Hamilton at the start and powering to unchallenged victory as his rival recovered to take second. But while that bruising encounter appeared to indicate that the Red Bull driver wouldn’t be easily cowed, the following two rounds – in Portugal and Spain – produced masterclasses in victory from Hamilton.
By contrast, Verstappen’s races were compromised by minor errors – a momentary slide at Turn 14 in Portugal; a garbled call to the pits and a locked front right wheel on his out lap in Barcelona – fractional indiscretions that, in the tightest battle Formula One has seen for a decade, were enough to hand glory to Mercedes’ indomitable avatar.
Now, as the young Dutchman boards the boat for the short trip around the harbour wall of the Port de Fontvielle to that “sunny place for shady people” and the Circuit de Monaco, he’s ready for redemption. But there’s one problem: Verstappen has never prospered here; he’s never been on the podium. In 2015, at his first Grand Prix in the principality, a bravura comeback from a slow pit stop ended when he missed a braking point and smashed into the back of Romain Grosjean’s Lotus. In 2016, he crashed in qualifying and spun off in the race. In 2017 he was fifth, but in 2018 he thumped the barriers in final practice, missed qualifying, and started from the back of the grid. Two years ago, on F1’s last visit, he was fourth. To keep Hamilton in check, to stop a 14-point gap ballooning from inconvenient to irreconcilable, Verstappen needs to draw deep.
“Monaco is something very different,” says Verstappen when asked about how much he’s looking forward to the weekend. “It’s so narrow. There are other street circuits, but it always feels there is more room at those. Here, there’s not. Especially in qualifying when you go to the limit.” But while he once might have viewed the walls closing in as an incentive to simply drop the throttle and risk all on the red line, this year’s Max Verstappen is different. Gone are the occasional volcanic displays of temper.
Left: A relaxed-looking Verstappen arrives by boat at the Circuit de Monaco, ahead of final practice for the principality’s iconic Grand Prix
Ahead of the curve: Verstappen leads Valtteri Bottas of Mercedes AMG Petronas around the famous hairpin during lap one of the race
Gone is the bullet-headed obstinacy that saw him flatly admit to ignoring yellow flags on his way to pole position in Mexico two years ago; a stubbornness that led to him being demoted to fourth place on the grid. In its place is a new competitive sense of balance and a Zen-like calm constructed around a philosophy he says is all about “choosing your moment to shine”.
“You have to understand that if it’s not your day, it’s not your day, and you have to settle for a certain result,” he says. “Last year, or in the years before, we knew that we weren’t in a championship fight, so in that situation you go for every single opportunity to win it – or bin it. Well, not really, but you do go over the limit to try to get a better result. But we now have a car that’s more capable of bringing the fight to Mercedes. It’s more than just a one-weekend wonder. We have to make sure that even if we don’t have a perfect move past Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to secure victory at the 2019 Austrian Grand Prix. For 2021’s Verstappen, the overarching vision is down to the closeness of the battle with Hamilton.
“I’m up against a seven-time world champion who has a lot of experience, but nevertheless you try to beat him. When it’s not possible, you settle for the best possible result, because it is going to be a long season and we cannot afford to make any big mistakes,” he says. “I know that Lewis is also very good at knowing how to pick his moments, at knowing when it’s not happening but still getting the best possible result out of it.”
Thursday afternoon. Seventy-two hours to go and the likelihood of a positive outcome is being severely tested. Verstappen’s new teammate, Sergio Pérez, goes quickest in the opening practice session of the weekend, but in the afternoon both Red Bulls drift inexorably off the pace. Pérez is ninth fastest, Verstappen better placed in fourth, but he still sits a disheartening four-tenths of a second off the pace-setting Ferrari of Leclerc. More importantly, he’s a place behind Hamilton. “We’re too slow,” he sighs. “Normally I’m quite comfortable in the car, I quite easily get to a pace, but it all takes too long and it’s just not how I like it. It’s the most difficult weekend.”
Things are not made easier by Hamilton cranking up the psychological warfare. Asked about the closeness of the on-track battles between the pair, the Mercedes driver attempts to seize the high ground. “I think I’ve done well to avoid all the incidents,” he says. “But we have 19 more [races] and we could connect. [Max] feels he perhaps has a lot to prove. I’m not in the same boat.”
Verstappen smiles and refuses to take the bait. “We’ve raced hard and avoided contact on both sides. Let’s hope we can keep doing that, keep being on track and race hard against each other.”
Friday in Monaco is a day off, a local tradition that dates back to the earliest days of the race, when it was held in and around the religious holiday of Ascension Day. But while the circuit opens to civilian traffic in the afternoon and Monégasques can briefly go about their business as normal, there’s no respite for Verstappen. Having chosen Monaco as his adoptive home in 2015, the Dutchman spends the morning at his
weekend, we still score a lot of points. It’s a different approach.”
This seems a lifetime away from the Verstappen who famously threatened to punch rival Esteban Ocon after the Frenchman crashed into him during the 2018 Brazilian Grand Prix, or who risked all in a bruising, wheel-banging late-race
Red Bull Racing’s RB16 car has been redesigned for the 2021 Grand Prix season. The RB16B features refinements including reshaped side pods and an upgraded Honda power unit
On the tight and twisty Monaco circuit, which spans Monte Carlo and the neighbouring area of La Condamine, overtaking is near impossible
Elevated position: a bird’s-eye view of the victorious Dutchman clutching the spoils of his 2021 Monaco Grand Prix win
apartment, digesting the previous day’s struggle. “It’s very close and I would say Mercedes is still faster, especially in the race, so we definitely need to step up,” he muses. “But I’ve done it before, in gokarting and junior formulas, when you’re having championship battles. It’s not anything new for me.”
And, during Saturday’s qualifying stage, Verstappen demonstrates just why he’s been routinely tipped as a future champion from the moment he became the sport’s youngest winner at the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix. Qualifying is where Formula One’s true greats excel.
Modern F1 races are exercises in controlled technicality, encompassing fiendishly complex notions of tyre management, fuel saving, and tactical energy deployment from hybrid powertrains. Qualifying, however, is far purer: man and machine, the smallest fuel load possible, absolute commitment on the limits of adhesion. And in Monaco – at a track where overtaking is nigh-on impossible and the result is regularly defined by grid position – qualifying is everything.
Divided into three sessions, the slowest five drivers are ejected after each of the first two rounds, leaving the top 10 to battle for pole position in a furious 12-minute spell at the end. Get it wrong, as Verstappen did in 2016, and you might as well stay in bed on Sunday. Get it right and one of motorsport’s most lustrous prizes is suddenly in reach. And in Monaco, where risk is hyperamplified by the closeness of the barriers, and mistakes are met with extreme punishment, Verstappen chooses his moment to shine... almost.
After sailing through the opening two sessions, he’s poised on his final run of the top 10 shoot-out to blaze past local hero Leclerc’s provisional pole time. Verstappen is 1,500ths of a second quicker than the Monégasque through the first of three lap sectors – Thursday’s deficit has been erased – but ahead Leclerc clips the barriers at the principality’s outdoor swimming pool. His Ferrari hits the barriers hard on the outside of the corner and the session is immediately red-flagged. Verstappen’s lap is ruined and he will line up in second place on the starting grid. But if he’s frustrated he doesn’t show it. Talking to the press afterwards, Verstappen vindicates the Ferrari driver of any blame, saying he shouldn’t have his pole position revoked.
“It’s different if someone does it deliberately, but that wasn’t the case here,” he tells reporters hungry for controversy. “We all push, and a mistake is easily made. All in all, everything is very positive. It’s always better to start first, but I don’t think we were only the second fastest today. It’s also racing that there will be a red flag; Charles isn’t doing it on purpose.” Verstappen’s karma is righteous.
Crucially, however, Hamilton, unhappy with his car, is five places further back on the grid.
Sunday. Thirty minutes until the race start. The pit lane opens and cars spill onto the track to make their way to the grid. As Leclerc climbs the hill towards Casino Square, a forlorn howl echoes from his radio. “No, no, no, the gearbox.” The Ferrari driver retreats to the pit lane, where the diagnosis is driveshaft damage from the previous day’s crash. Verstappen will start with a clear view to Turn One.
When the lights go out, the Dutchman shines once more. After swiftly closing the door on any challenge from behind, he storms into the lead. And, as Hamilton becomes mired behind slower cars and limps to seventh, Verstappen grows in confidence to take a flawless, glittering, first Monaco win.
There’s even time in the wake of the race to deliver a sharp riposte to Hamilton’s earlier mind games. “Actions always speak louder than words – I think that’s a good lesson after this weekend,” he smiles. “I hope we can keep that going for the rest of the season.” It’s a season that Verstappen, at least in this moment, now leads by four points over Hamilton; the immortal champion’s armour has been pierced.
Confidence in the machinery at his disposal, trust in the team around him, trademark unwavering self-belief, and now a resolute determination enhanced by awareness of the big-picture demands of a title challenge – the 2021 version of Max Verstappen may just be the one that brings the Driver’s title back to Red Bull for the first time in eight years. Except that even now the Dutchman cautions against empty optimism.
“I’m pretty realistic and I just want to focus on the race ahead,” he says. “I don’t want to put unnecessary pressure on anyone. I want to focus on the race weekends and I prefer to remain quite silent. I don’t need to hype anything up. Dreaming doesn’t get you anywhere.” verstappen.com; redbull.com
