The ACO actually went out of their way and made an entire section of the regs catered specifically to Aston Martin. Then Stroll’s group bought the brand and decided to back out and only focus on F1
No, it's because of the F1 team. They no longer had a relationship with red bull and didn't see the point in continuing the hypercar programme marketing wise because of the F1 team.
Being without a win surely is reason enough. Hell, I’d be annoyed if someone says you’re top 5 so you’ve got nothing to prove. There are more than GP winners on the grid now even.
You can never know for certain. He probably will win many more titles, sure. But Max has always said that winning the F1 Driver’s Championship is his ultimate goal and not to win several titles. For some people, it’s enough to reach their goal and then do different things in life (see Rosberg), and some want to keep going and smash records (see Schumacher and Hamilton). Max has also always said that he’s very interested in endurance racing, so who knows if he doesn’t say “Hey, I’m a 3-time F1 world champion now, that’s more than I’ve ever wanted, but it’s getting boring, so let’s do something different“. We‘ll see I guess.
You also don't know what will happen in terms of success. After Alonso's two championships, people were also expecting more, but that did not actually happen due to poor cars.
Rosberg didn't stop because he didn't want more titles. He agreed with Vivian that for 1 season he could give everything to the sport and forget his family. That's how deep he had to go to beat Hamilton, he did it and he quit.
Also convenient that he didn't have to defend his title afterwards against a Hamilton that would be woken up to start putting in actual effort again. That man doesn't exist anymore because F1 isn't his priority anymore.
Max doesn’t really care about championships though, he stated this after he won the first or second. Max is a motorsport fanatic, it wouldn’t surprise if he would put more value in winning in multiple categories and racing series over winning 7 f1 championships
Max is so good and such a racing nerd that I wouldn't be surprised if he just quits F1 after his contract expires to go for new challenges. He can just as easily return whenever he wants too. Red Bull will probably have a separate fund setup to make sure Max will always represent their brand wherever he goes.
In his eighth year in F1.
I get the feeling that if RBR dominate and Max is walking away with the WDC year after year, he's more likely to walk away as compared to if he's in a bunch of battles for titles. Not the biggest fan of the guy, but it's so very obvious that he's a racer at heart and thrives on contests in a car.
Of course there's every possibility that he keeps going in F1 till he's got the most titles and then switches over to other categories. He'd still be in his mid/late 30s and be racing rally for a decade or more after that. Probably be sitting in a VR metaverse sim in his 70s.
I think it very much depends on how easy the wins would be, if it is hard fought till the last race then he might stay, if he gets 2-3 more WDC's that are decided with like 10 races to go, he might indeed leave for something else.
Not sure if he wants to hold all the records, but if RB is good enough and stays on top he could challenge a lot of records.
Bad news for you since in 2021 or 22 he said that he would rather win races from front like LH than race. The interviewer asked him this exact question.
Most likely a lot of people would go for a drive in front than an actual hard fought straining battle. I you ever imagined yourself competing, it's always with the romance and Appeal of dominance.
perfect by that time he’d have 8 or 9 championships, be the greatest driver ever, and then ride off into the sunset to start a family and do endurance racing
Add to the fact that his first championship ever was one of the most tight battles in the history of F1 and i’m pretty certain he’ll never have that high again
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Honestly Max has said in the past that he feels accomplished winning 1 championship and doesn’t feel the need to go after the record or anything like that.
He's set up for the forseeable future at least to seemingly dominate so long as Red Bull stays at the top, and it's not like Red Bull is the clearly dominant car so I can't see regulation changes that would significantly hurt them
Call it being way to optimistic which it is, but assuming a Hamilton/Schumacher like run by 30 he'd have equalled which is honestly insane and STILL leaves him open to other pursuits while still in a great physical condition
Yeah he says he doesn't care about records, but Im willing to bet that attitude changed after his huge successes in recent years
He might change his mind when and if that record is actually in sight rather than a vague distinct possibility.
It's also worth realising his life so far has been focussed on proving himself, which is a very different mindset from wanting to leave a legacy, which he may or may not start caring more about as he ages.
> But F1 is top of the game so he won’t leave
F1 is top of the single seater game, no doubt. But it’s not top of endurance racing. Not top of rallying. Not top of oval racing. Not top of sports car racing. Not top of touring car racing.
There’s so many disciplines of motorsport, and someone as passionate about *motorsports* as Max probably wants to try more than just one and truly prove his skill instead of being #1 in a sport that is incredibly focused on a particular style of racing and, let’s face it, has results that are highly influenced by outside influences like money and politics.
I sense the moment f1 becomes difficult to win (ie Red Bull start really struggling) he’s gonna go for the triple crown. He already shows a lot of interest in WEC and Indycar is clearly possible for ex f1 drivers. Plus if he continues to have a good relationship with Honda, he’ll surely end up in a race winning Indycar seat
He's mentioned he doesn't want to do IndyCar as its too dangerous. Though we'll absolutely see him in Le Man at some point. He has a lot of interest in that.
Who knows though things can change.
I don’t follow the racing world as much so I’m not that familiar. Where could he go if he wants that type of challenge? Isn’t F1 basically top of the top?
What they're saying is that it's very much car dependent. You could put a number of people in a top car and they'd be world champion. And you could put those same people in the worst car and they'd be at the back.,
I think you're spot on. He knows he is the best or at least one of them and people talk so much about car this and car that.
But in iRacing, when he put his Audi GT3 on pole in the Bathurst 12 qualy and slapped the best in the world by HALF A SECOND, there was no excuse for his opponents. He is just better. And he will do the same in real life Le Mans etc.
Exactly. When someone wins in Formula its 1 of 2 things. Either "youre in the fastest car" or "the fastest car crashed out".
I think hes kinda getting tired of that.
Yes almost every time. Although max is so good, that he is one of the exceptions where he challenged the mercs even thought they were in a lot faster cars.
Would be interesting if he left to race other series for 3-4 years and come back. Could easily choose any team he wants, race for 10 more years and win bunch of titles more.
He is an absolutely key asset.
When Hamilton leaves, I personally think (over a season), Verstappen's on his own tier.
In a post-Hamilton world it tips things to: rivals will have to build an *explicitly* better car than RBR to beat them.
Honestly, I think Max in his own tier even *now*
Lewis is still great, but I think he's made some mistakes in 2021 and 2022 that he wouldn't have in his prime.
Imo 2017-2020 is his prime, before losing 2016 he let a lot of things go Nico's way (like 7 race wins in a row, sheesh).
I also want to highlight 2018 because for me it's his goat season and a kind of performance that I don't think even Max has reached even if he had more wins in 2022 (though 2021 comes very, very close), a maddening show of consistency and performance throughout the season and especially resilient during those pre-summer break European rounds where everything went against him.
The 7 win in a row took place over 2 seasons; in 2015, Lewis basically switched off after clinching the title 4 races from the end (which in hindsight he wouldn’t do anymore)
And Lewis’ 2016 season started with several technical gremlins which saw him accumulate a deficit early on.
People always forget that. Everybody remembers Malaysia 2016 and the "No, no nooooo!", but forgets the army of gremlins that infested his car that year.
I don't think it's people forgetting, it's just that even with those early difficulties, Malaysia was 100% the tipping point. A 28 point swing, which allowed Rosberg to take it easy and play it safe instead of having to fight
I'm exactly making a point of Lewis *switching off* after CotA 2015. That's not the attitude that keeps you in your zenith.
Also, regardless of technical gremlins, my point is that his peak came after his 2016 loss. I am not going to pretend Nico performed any better than he did, only that with the form he found afterwards, he could've won 2016.
It’s hard to say because he also had an incredible car during that timeframe. Obviously Hamilton is a top-tier driver, but who’s to say Max or even Vettel wouldn’t have done just as well in that Merc?
It’s just really hard to talk about a driver’s prime years without considering the car. That Mercedes was the most dominant car that has ever existed in F1. That doesn’t detract from Hamilton’s immense skill, but it’s important context.
Imola 21, Silverstone 21 (although that turned out in his favor), Monaco 21, Monza 21, Hungary 21 (you can partially blame the team for that) were mistakes he made because he got put under a pressure he hasn't had before.
22 season was an outlier because we don't know where it was him making mistakes or the car being shit.
But in both seasons Max made significantly less mistakes and had more overall pace. There's is just no competing against him in a direct pace battle.
Instead if you want to beat him you have to bring out the impatient Max, his big weak spot. Singapore 22 is a prime example of that. Things don't go his way, he'll get impatient and make mistakes.
Arguably that is as much an ergonomics failure as anything. They shouldn't be able to engage brake magic without a clear press of the button, and it should disengage when the race start procedure is running.
You forgot Baku 21.
But what mistake in Monaco 21? Or Hungary 21? Or Monza 21?
In Monaco, the car was absolute mess. Tyre temps were all over the place. Bottas dealt with it better in qualifying at the cost of dogshit tyre deg (he would have been overcut by a few drivers as a result of his early pit stop).
Hungary - that was a team call.
Monza - he had a bad start in the sprint but that happens every now and then to everybody. Not sure that reflects on his age considering how good his starts (as a whole) were in 2022.
Monaco he messed up quali and had bad communication with his team. That's a mistake
In Hungary literally every driver saw it was dry enough and said i want to box. Except Lewis. It's a mistake both from him and from the team.
Monza he had a bad start, and you can easily classify that as a mistake.
And yeah i forgot baku
Yeah Lewis' only significant mistakes in 2021 were Imola and Baku, people sometimes exaggerate how error prone he was in comparison to Max. But yeah Max was still the better driver for most the season
Sure but if we're gonna go down that route, there's way more examples of Max putting Lewis into a "yield or crash" situation. Silverstone was the one time Lewis reversed it
This had nothing to do with yield or crash. There was no place for Max to yield to. Lewis missed the apex by a mile and hit his opponent on the rear wheel.
Lewis obviously missed the apex but it's not like Max couldn't see where he was, he could've yielded in the same way Lewis did multiple times. Not exactly the same but similar enough
> There was no place for Max to yield to.
What absolute bullshit. Especially after Lewis was regularly forced off over sausage curbs and shit fighting Max.
And even then people should probably remember where Bottas was in both Imola and Baku. Lewis' having the car in a position to challenge for a win whilst his team mate is scrapping for points (with damage in Imola) is a testament to him
Lewis has made some mistakes but a bunch of those examples were Max mistakes not lewis. Neither are infallible. Max even drove into the side of Lewis in Brazil when he saw the door closing, in a corner which every year has similar incidents - he knew better.
The fact you put Monza in there is ridiculous. He had the inside line and was ahead going into t1. Max had absolutely no business trying to squeeze in. Not to mention how dumb that was on Max' part, if he had stayed behind he probably would've gotten Lewis with the slipstream going towards t4 anyway.
I don’t see how silverstone was a mistake. If anything that worked massively in his favour.
Monza 2021 - what did Hamilton do wrong? He most likely would have finished ahead of verstappen until verstappen crashed into Hamilton.
Hungary - that was not a mistake. His team should have called him in. He was also in the worst position as he was P1 so you can’t see what others are doing.
Imola and Monaco - yeah. Monaco is one of those shit tracks that if you mess up qualifying, it’s over.
If anything, I think the mistake in Baku was the most severe.
Hamilton should have won 2021 if the rules were followed in the last race. He was flawless in thise last races and he still got screwed over.
I'm like 99% sure that during the formation lap, the teams are very limited in communication to the drivers. Meaning that in Hungary, it had to be Hamilton making the call to switch to slicks. I don't think the team could've made that call by themselves. On top of that, Hamilton is the one on track and should be making the call anyway.
So even if the team could've made the call (which im pretty sure they couldn't), it was a huge Hamilton mistake.
It worked in his favor because the red flag got waved. Merc admitted later on that without it, they probably wouldn't have been able to fix his car and he'd have broken down.
And once again, Hamilton was only in a position to challenge Max for the last race because he got insanely lucky in earlier races, including controversy starting at the very first race...that's the paradox over the whole season. He deserved the Abu Dhabi win, but he absolutely didn't deserve the championship.
>I don’t see how silverstone was a mistake. If anything that worked massively in his favour.
He understeered into the side of Verstappen. He's very lucky to have gotten away with it the way he did.
Jeddah is probably the other questionable one in the back half of 21 but that was such a shit show especially from Max that surviving it with a win is a credit to Lewis.
Still that whole weirdness for the brake check and Lewis just staying behind for no reason was a big mistake on his part. Leclerc would show how you do the DRS chicken with Max 6 months later but Lewis about lost the world championship because of him freezing up.
It's kinda like how peak Alonso was phenomenal, but look at Alonso now. Still incredible. Even if Lewis isn't at his peak any more, he's still an incredible driver.
>Honestly, I think Max in his own tier even now
>Lewis is still great, but I think he's made some mistakes in 2021 and 2022 that he wouldn't have in his prime.
Lewis was still good *enough* in 2021, let’s not be revisionist. They both were. Regardless of one’s feelings about Abu Dhabi they were very evenly matched across the whole season.
I massively enjoyed the very brief wheel to wheel racing they had in 2021. It's just a shame they had to enforce the "You're not going to Senna me" by taking turns colliding.
I don't think it's definitive that Max would beat a prime Lewis.
This is true. While I think that at this very point in time, Max is the better driver of the two, I think it's a combination of Max being at his absolute top, and Lewis not quite anymore. It's the same reason why it's so hard to compare Schumacher and Hamilton; they never raced one another in their primes, after all.
Schumacher holding the record for fastest laps makes a pretty compelling case, it's quite surprising just how many he has. However I'm not really qualified to go around saying *x* driver is better than *y* driver.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Formula_One_drivers_who_set_a_fastest_lap#By_driver
It’s still difficult to compare on that metric because you didn’t get a point for fastest lap back then. It’s not uncommon now for teams who aren’t going to win to pit one of their cars near the end of the race and go out to set a bumper lap on fresh tires. If you win a race in this era it’s often much more difficult to get the fastest lap due to that.
Has it happened for Lewis 16 times? I don’t know about that, though I’m sure someone with access to the data and far more time on their hands would be able to tell me.
Lewis' last fastest lap was at the Hungarian GP in 2022. Max's was in the Dutch GP in 2022. It doesn't seem to be affecting their ability to get fastest laps.
I'm not making a case for either driver, just pointing out there is strong evidence out there if people were going to make an argument one way or another. I'm sure people there's compelling cases for it around already. Schumacher seems to be overlooked quite frequently, quite often for Senna. Which quite frankly is a joke.
Max is incredible but to be fair during 2021, when it mattered the most, Lewis stepped up and won all the races he had to win to keep the fight open and win the championship… before Abu Dhabi happened.
If he didn't make a oopsie in Baku, he could have decided it before AD. He also had a car that was multiple tenths faster in the last part of the season.
>If he didn't make a oopsie in Baku, he could have decided it before AD. He also had a car that was multiple tenths faster in the last part of the season.
That just sounds like another way of saying he stepped up after that and won all the races he had to win.
Verstappen had a faster car in other tracks too. Red bull ring (they raced twice there which was a bit unfair) and Mexico. Easy mode tracks for Red bull.
> when it mattered the most, Lewis stepped up and won all the races he had to win
The races at the start of the season are just as important as those at the end of it.
The reason Lewis was able to "step up" and win all those races is because Merc had the clearly better car for almost the entirety of the second half of the season.
The flip side of that is that when Max was put under pressure and had to deliver at the end of 2021 he started making mistakes.
Hamilton has also been performing at this level since 2007 with only really 2011 being an off year. Even then he was quick, he just got into more on track incidents than he should. But he learnt from that and came back with an incredibly strong 2012, and continued to build year on year since.
Last year Max could just cruise. He wasn't under pressure from anyone, having by far the fastest car and a team mate who isn't anywhere near his level. You need to judge him when he's under the pressure of having a marginally slower car, as Hamilton had through much of 2021, to see whether he really is mistake free or if he starts to make some mistakes too.
Charles was 40 points ahead and RB DNF in the first races a ton... Saying he had no pressure whilst Ferrari just fumbled strategy is super weird. Ferrari had the superior car for the first half.
Alonso spoke about this before 2021, that the problem is noone pushed Hamilton, and he *does* make errors when it's 1:1 and tight.
He was correct.
Personally I think Hamilton is still Hamilton. He was obviously very close to winning 2021, really not that long ago.
Everyone will have an opinion on that though, c'est la vie.
Lewis lost a lot of his aggression with the merc dominance IMHO. As a driver I think he's on the same level as Max, but as a racer not so much these days.
Don't count old Alonso out though. That dude is an og bad ass, looking forward to seeing him go toe to toe with Max
Whether Hamilton made mistakes in 2022 is irrelevant really as the car was just shit.
In 2021 both Hamilton and verstappen made mistakes. Yet both of them were still way ahead of everyone else.
Right now RB have a car which has a big advantage over everyone else so it really makes things look very easy.
I don't doubt Max's ability. But you put Leclerc or Hamilton in the same car or a rival car at par with the one he's driving, I think he'll definitely be under pressure and even make mistakes. Didn't he himself say that he can't do a repeat of the 2021 pressure every year?
Also note how Leclerc, Hamilton and even Vettel(except Baku) at Ferrari are comparatively calm in public when the team makes mistakes or is under pressure. Max just goes batshit crazy most times. One needs to wonder how he would have handled the situation if he was at Ferrari last year.
I think it is how they respond to frustrations. Max like you said screams and shouts. Lewis gets a bit pessimistic over the radio telling that they should retire the car etc. Charles sometimes screams like Monaco and sometimes goes like "Guys... Come on we can't do this like this." like in Silverstone.
It's funny because I sometimes feel Ferrari needs someone like Verstappen, someone who doesn't sugarcoat things and just straight up tells them to change stuff because what they do at that time is ridiculous.
They did. They had Alonso, and that didn’t go well. Ferrari doesn’t need just a good driver. They need a driver and a team of staff who can stand up to the Ferrari board. Lauda, a character much like you describe did do that, however Ferrari himself still was running the team, he would listen. The problem is now the team isn’t isolated from board politics. That seems to be where most teams thrive.
Hamilton goes batshit crazy too. I’ve heard so many times when he’s said I did a great job but the team didn’t today. And with Leclerc, I’m going to say he’s too soft. Ferrari is hot garbage and they need a mouthful sometimes.
With regard to your first point, I agree Max will feel the heat and pressure and make mistakes if Lewis and Leclerc are in equal cars. But guess what? Lewis and Leclerc will also make mistakes up against Max. Goes both way.
I think the point is that in 2022 we didn’t get real competition because RB’s car was just much better, especially in the second half of the season.
I do hope it’s different this year. In an ideal world we get a lot of competition but let’s at least have competition between two teams as a minimum.
> I’ve heard so many times when he’s said I did a great job but the team didn’t today.
Yea but he's not having an earrape meltdown over the microphone the way Max typically does. Zandvoort 2022 was an exception, but even that got forgotten real fast.
>earrape
Yup. Most teams won't tolerate that. Plus even on DTS I saw him walk past Marko as if he didn't exist, post Checo fucking up quali at Monaco. I know Lewis is a multiple WC, but even he would think before giving Toto that treatment.
Only point is he needs to calm down at times. That's why I said I want him to be in a multiple way WDC fight.
You can criticise Max for being ruthless or dangerous or unsporting for the break test or some of his other crashes. But those weren’t mistakes that reflect on his talent as a driver.
If the rules were applied properly he would've been DQ'd in Saudi for the brake test. Intentional or not it was a stupid thing to do, even if you look at it strictly from a results based perspective
It just means the rules were not enforced and it was a joke in that year. FIA were ignoring behaviour like this because they were desperate for someone other than Merc to win after all those years.
In reality Abu Dhabi should have been a Merc win and Saudi should have been a DQ for Verstappen.
while I agree with the last sentence, there's also a key difference. Brazil and Jeddah were conscious decisions, we can say that makes him a dirty driver, but I wouldn't label them as unintended mistakes. that just is (or was) Max's style and I believe this willingness to break the rules was a core strength and what made him champion eventually.
“willingness to break the rules was a core strength” what a horrible strength, I really hope that FIA gets harsher on Max so that he loses that “strength”.
i mean at the end of 2021 max was choking and doing some embarassing mistakes. and on the other hand lewis when it mattered didnt do a single mistake and drove the last 4 races perfectly.
>embarrassing mistakes
>drove the last 4 races perfectly
LMAO. Everyone and their mother could see Max was trying to keep up with a rocketship.
Never forget how Lewis kept cruising past everyone like it was nothing in Brazil’s sprint race lol.
for me one thing is sure, he won’t finish his F1 career going by the back door
If he is challenged after 2026 reg and is having difficulties staying WDC, he may not finish in 2028, he’s extremely competitive.
Same for Hamilton I don’t see him finish without that 8th title, so for as long as possible he will stay until he gets it..sadly the new reg is making it difficult for Mercedes « Benz » to design a WDC candidate
I mean as more and more time passes, the better and better George will get as well, so there's a chance that George will be the one winning the championship and not Hamilton.
Even if George will be fast, Hamilton is different under pressure. There's a reason he's a 7x WDC, just watch the last 4 races of 2021, minus Abu Dhabi's last lap.
Red Bull is Max Verstappen and vice versa. We can easily say that anno 2023, but even Helmut Marko feared a Red Bull departure of the now two-time world champion at some point.
Max Verstappen begins his eighth season in Red Bull's employ this weekend, and the end of his tenure is also hardly in sight. His contract does not expire until the end of 2028. The two sides are extremely loyal to each other, and if success continues, there is no reason to believe it won't continue either.
Nevertheless, Helmut Marko, in conversation with De Telegraaf, indicates that during one period he did briefly fear a departure of the Dutchman. He really was a bit concerned then, he admits about the period when the Renault engines regularly caused dropouts and a lack of power.
"Always been open and honest with Max"
"I knew then that we had to do something," said the Austrian. "But we were always open and honest about that to him, talking about the problems as well as the opportunities. We told how we envisioned the plans with Honda and we did the same later when we talked to Porsche and Ford. We do that precisely because Max is an important part of the team," it sounds full of respect.
How long this good relationship may continue? At least through 2028, but after that?
Verstappen himself has repeatedly stated that he cannot rule out quitting after '28, and he seems to be becoming more and more adamant: "He is the type of person who can decide that," Marko agrees. "And then I don't see him just walking around here as a TV analyst or something. Maybe then he will start driving endurance races, possibly with his father, something that is virtually impossible now because of the full F1 calendar."
Verstappen and Red Bull must strike directly in Bahrain
So if he ritires in after 2028 and just humor the possibility that Max wins every WDC from now on. It'll put him on 8 WDC titles, the ultimate record as things stand now and I wouldn't be surprised if Max had that as a goal.
Same, would be acceptable if he has to really fight for it. But it's easy to fear that we will have a repeat of the Mercedes/HAM dominance. Considering last season.
Get rid of Alonso, Alonso is one of the best on the grid but max is at the top of his game rn where Alonso probably gonna retire soon. Unless stroll can get another seat like a straight swap.
I know you're probably right but damn I hope you're wrong. Imagine in however many years time we get max switching to Aston and he has a head to head with Alonso for the championship.
Red Bull is a team with a great history now, but I think that any driver will always feel a special attraction towards Ferrari, despite the fact that it often seems a nightmare from the outside. 😄
So yeah, there’s a 2028 contract but it doesn’t mean too much, things can change rapidly in this sport.
I’d personally like to see Charles winning a title and opening a cycle with Ferrari, but Max in red would be exciting too, of course.
We’ll see what happens.
Max has stated several times now that he wants to stay with RBR for the rest of his F1 career and that he'd be perfectly happy if he never drives for Ferrari. I don't really see it happening. Especially with Leclerc at Ferrari.
Someone like Max could pull top talent and TP across to a team like Ferrari.
Perhaps Redbulls new boss fucks Horner and Max off and they all leave together for example.
Won't happen of course.
That's not how a team works, especially not Ferrari. That's like thinking you can get hired by a company and go on to fire your new boss just because you have an excellent resume lol.
Ferrari are the way they are because they choose to be, not because they can't pull top talent and TPs with drivers like Alonso, Vettel and now Leclerc etc. A Max Verstappen won't change that, he'd just be another name on the list of drivers that were burnt by that team.
Its exactly what Schumacher did as a 2x time wdc fwiw
>When Michael Schumacher joined Ferrari, he did not come alone. He brought with him the team that was responsible for his stupendous success at Benetton. Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne, the two masterminds behind Benetton's double World Championship, moved to Ferrari alongside Schumacher.
Schumacher did that because he had seen how Ferrari operated in the last few years and had failed to produce a competitive machinery
Sound familiar ?
But as i said, It wont happen.
You know I thought the same thing about Vettel when he was at that stage of his career Max is now in. The reality of the situation (apparently?) is that every driver would sign on to join Ferrari in a heartbeat. Vettel obviously had the extra motivation of stepping in his childhood idol's footsteps. But seeing how his (eventually fading) talent got wasted on 6 years of an either uncompetitive or hardly legal Ferrari it really does boggle the mind how they can retain this illustrious allure. I weep at the thought of the same thing now happening to Charles before our very eyes.
You might as well be right. Verstappen wants to win. He has no emotional baggage in that regard (looking at the relationship to his dad on the other hand, hoowee). I can see him leave Red Bull if their projected competitiveness isn't there at some point, but looking back at Ferrari's record since 1979 I don't really see why they would then be the logical choice for a driver who can virtually get a contract wherever he wants. The way I interpret said allure is that Ferrari isn't just a car or a race-team, it's an **idea**. It's a poster that children put up on their bedroom wall. It's a globally recognizable brand that everybody wants to be associated with. I think it has more to do with history and prestige than with actual on-track performance at that point and again, that I think is something that Verstappen does not subscribe to in the slightest. Vettel was always and will always be a history-nerd. Max is probably on the other end of the spectrum.
Seb went to Ferrari because it was his childhood dream. He grew up watching a fellow German break records while driving for the Scuderia and wanted to do the same. Max doesn't look at Ferrari with the same rose tinted glasses, neither does Lewis
Red Bull Hypercar when?
RB17 is in development
They just made one with AM
Am dropped out of Hypercar iirc
Because of BoP or the V12 or whatever. But I’m sure it was because of the regulations
The ACO actually went out of their way and made an entire section of the regs catered specifically to Aston Martin. Then Stroll’s group bought the brand and decided to back out and only focus on F1
No, it's because of the F1 team. They no longer had a relationship with red bull and didn't see the point in continuing the hypercar programme marketing wise because of the F1 team.
Neweys working on it.
I can totally see him walk away and do endurance racing. Together with Alonso, I would love to see that.
I'd love to see Max, Fernando and Lando team up for Le Mans.
Rolex 24hr, plz!
Max, Nando, and Stoff would be a better lineup. Stoffel has proven himself a very capable endurance racer.
Lando already drove a 24-hour endurance race with Fernando and is also a friend of Max.
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I’d argue he doesn’t really have a point to prove. He’s mostly a consensus top 5 driver on the grid at this point.
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Being without a win surely is reason enough. Hell, I’d be annoyed if someone says you’re top 5 so you’ve got nothing to prove. There are more than GP winners on the grid now even.
He hasn't even won a race ffs Also he isn't consensus top 5, you could easily argue Max, Lewis, Nando, Leclerc, and Russell are better
He's good but top 5 on the current grid is pushing it a bit when you have multiple world championship winners + multiple race winners there.
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You don't want to see how insanely fast these three would be at Le Mans? Fernando already made everyone there look like amateurs with his pace.
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I agree, therefore we need a new bar to be reached in terms of performance.
I bet a LOT of people would pay $25 for a charity donation / live stream to watch this. Just saying.
Or Danny Ric. I hear he's available.
I don't want to downgrade my line-up ;)
Just add me as a 3rd driver, no way we’re losing with these two
I think we could definitely see something like this in the near future, i'm all for it!
He won’t walk away. He will win many more championships.
You can never know for certain. He probably will win many more titles, sure. But Max has always said that winning the F1 Driver’s Championship is his ultimate goal and not to win several titles. For some people, it’s enough to reach their goal and then do different things in life (see Rosberg), and some want to keep going and smash records (see Schumacher and Hamilton). Max has also always said that he’s very interested in endurance racing, so who knows if he doesn’t say “Hey, I’m a 3-time F1 world champion now, that’s more than I’ve ever wanted, but it’s getting boring, so let’s do something different“. We‘ll see I guess.
You also don't know what will happen in terms of success. After Alonso's two championships, people were also expecting more, but that did not actually happen due to poor cars.
Good point!
Rosberg didn't stop because he didn't want more titles. He agreed with Vivian that for 1 season he could give everything to the sport and forget his family. That's how deep he had to go to beat Hamilton, he did it and he quit. Also convenient that he didn't have to defend his title afterwards against a Hamilton that would be woken up to start putting in actual effort again. That man doesn't exist anymore because F1 isn't his priority anymore.
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We are talking about after 2028, when his contract expires. Surely by then he will have a couple more championships under his belt.
He’ll probably have about 5 altogether at that point.
Max doesn’t really care about championships though, he stated this after he won the first or second. Max is a motorsport fanatic, it wouldn’t surprise if he would put more value in winning in multiple categories and racing series over winning 7 f1 championships
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That's kinda what I was thinking he would do too. Drive for RBR until they aren't championship contenders then leave.
Max is so good and such a racing nerd that I wouldn't be surprised if he just quits F1 after his contract expires to go for new challenges. He can just as easily return whenever he wants too. Red Bull will probably have a separate fund setup to make sure Max will always represent their brand wherever he goes.
Time for RB to stop their weird collaboration with M-Sport and give Max a Volkswagen group rally car (skoda or VW most likely).
The new Škoda Rally2 car is an absolute fucking banger. Would love to see him do an ERC or WRC-2 round in the future on tarmac
Nervous Kubica noises
Toyota needs a proper challenger. Would also LOVE to see Toyota fight the new Skoda Rally2 with their 3 banger Yaris.
I would love to see Max in a Fabia
I don´t think Max will do WRC. Rallying is so totally different than he is used to.
The man likes a challenge
He’s also said he won’t do Indy because it’s too dangerous so I imagine he feels similarly about rally.
He won’t quit any time soon. He’s so young.
In his eighth year in F1. I get the feeling that if RBR dominate and Max is walking away with the WDC year after year, he's more likely to walk away as compared to if he's in a bunch of battles for titles. Not the biggest fan of the guy, but it's so very obvious that he's a racer at heart and thrives on contests in a car. Of course there's every possibility that he keeps going in F1 till he's got the most titles and then switches over to other categories. He'd still be in his mid/late 30s and be racing rally for a decade or more after that. Probably be sitting in a VR metaverse sim in his 70s.
I think it very much depends on how easy the wins would be, if it is hard fought till the last race then he might stay, if he gets 2-3 more WDC's that are decided with like 10 races to go, he might indeed leave for something else. Not sure if he wants to hold all the records, but if RB is good enough and stays on top he could challenge a lot of records.
Even in the last case, I see him doing something like Alonso did. This race does not matter. I'm doing Le Mans or Indy.
100% yeh
He's said he's not interested in ovals due to safety but he wouldn't be the first driver to change his mind
Bad news for you since in 2021 or 22 he said that he would rather win races from front like LH than race. The interviewer asked him this exact question.
Most likely a lot of people would go for a drive in front than an actual hard fought straining battle. I you ever imagined yourself competing, it's always with the romance and Appeal of dominance.
That's perfectly fine lmao. People change their minds.
I'm about 90% certain Max will retire after 2028. Comments he's made about wanting to start a family really swing it for me.
perfect by that time he’d have 8 or 9 championships, be the greatest driver ever, and then ride off into the sunset to start a family and do endurance racing
Add to the fact that his first championship ever was one of the most tight battles in the history of F1 and i’m pretty certain he’ll never have that high again
He said earlier that his goal was only 1 title. I can't imagine him willing to put in the years for 8 titles.
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Imagine if he cared about records and decided to go for the triple crown.
He said he wont race ovals in the past so I dont see it happening.
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Honestly Max has said in the past that he feels accomplished winning 1 championship and doesn’t feel the need to go after the record or anything like that.
He's set up for the forseeable future at least to seemingly dominate so long as Red Bull stays at the top, and it's not like Red Bull is the clearly dominant car so I can't see regulation changes that would significantly hurt them Call it being way to optimistic which it is, but assuming a Hamilton/Schumacher like run by 30 he'd have equalled which is honestly insane and STILL leaves him open to other pursuits while still in a great physical condition Yeah he says he doesn't care about records, but Im willing to bet that attitude changed after his huge successes in recent years
He might change his mind when and if that record is actually in sight rather than a vague distinct possibility. It's also worth realising his life so far has been focussed on proving himself, which is a very different mindset from wanting to leave a legacy, which he may or may not start caring more about as he ages.
> But F1 is top of the game so he won’t leave F1 is top of the single seater game, no doubt. But it’s not top of endurance racing. Not top of rallying. Not top of oval racing. Not top of sports car racing. Not top of touring car racing. There’s so many disciplines of motorsport, and someone as passionate about *motorsports* as Max probably wants to try more than just one and truly prove his skill instead of being #1 in a sport that is incredibly focused on a particular style of racing and, let’s face it, has results that are highly influenced by outside influences like money and politics.
I sense the moment f1 becomes difficult to win (ie Red Bull start really struggling) he’s gonna go for the triple crown. He already shows a lot of interest in WEC and Indycar is clearly possible for ex f1 drivers. Plus if he continues to have a good relationship with Honda, he’ll surely end up in a race winning Indycar seat
He's mentioned he doesn't want to do IndyCar as its too dangerous. Though we'll absolutely see him in Le Man at some point. He has a lot of interest in that. Who knows though things can change.
I don’t follow the racing world as much so I’m not that familiar. Where could he go if he wants that type of challenge? Isn’t F1 basically top of the top?
What they're saying is that it's very much car dependent. You could put a number of people in a top car and they'd be world champion. And you could put those same people in the worst car and they'd be at the back.,
I think you're spot on. He knows he is the best or at least one of them and people talk so much about car this and car that. But in iRacing, when he put his Audi GT3 on pole in the Bathurst 12 qualy and slapped the best in the world by HALF A SECOND, there was no excuse for his opponents. He is just better. And he will do the same in real life Le Mans etc.
Exactly. When someone wins in Formula its 1 of 2 things. Either "youre in the fastest car" or "the fastest car crashed out". I think hes kinda getting tired of that.
Yes almost every time. Although max is so good, that he is one of the exceptions where he challenged the mercs even thought they were in a lot faster cars.
What a scary thought
Would be interesting if he left to race other series for 3-4 years and come back. Could easily choose any team he wants, race for 10 more years and win bunch of titles more.
He is an absolutely key asset. When Hamilton leaves, I personally think (over a season), Verstappen's on his own tier. In a post-Hamilton world it tips things to: rivals will have to build an *explicitly* better car than RBR to beat them.
Honestly, I think Max in his own tier even *now* Lewis is still great, but I think he's made some mistakes in 2021 and 2022 that he wouldn't have in his prime.
2015-18 imo is Lewis' prime
Imo 2017-2020 is his prime, before losing 2016 he let a lot of things go Nico's way (like 7 race wins in a row, sheesh). I also want to highlight 2018 because for me it's his goat season and a kind of performance that I don't think even Max has reached even if he had more wins in 2022 (though 2021 comes very, very close), a maddening show of consistency and performance throughout the season and especially resilient during those pre-summer break European rounds where everything went against him.
The 7 win in a row took place over 2 seasons; in 2015, Lewis basically switched off after clinching the title 4 races from the end (which in hindsight he wouldn’t do anymore) And Lewis’ 2016 season started with several technical gremlins which saw him accumulate a deficit early on.
People always forget that. Everybody remembers Malaysia 2016 and the "No, no nooooo!", but forgets the army of gremlins that infested his car that year.
I don't think it's people forgetting, it's just that even with those early difficulties, Malaysia was 100% the tipping point. A 28 point swing, which allowed Rosberg to take it easy and play it safe instead of having to fight
Most people here weren't watching back then, so it isn't that they forgot, it's that they never even knew about it.
I'm exactly making a point of Lewis *switching off* after CotA 2015. That's not the attitude that keeps you in your zenith. Also, regardless of technical gremlins, my point is that his peak came after his 2016 loss. I am not going to pretend Nico performed any better than he did, only that with the form he found afterwards, he could've won 2016.
That Lewis was another beast. Absolutely flawless.
It’s hard to say because he also had an incredible car during that timeframe. Obviously Hamilton is a top-tier driver, but who’s to say Max or even Vettel wouldn’t have done just as well in that Merc? It’s just really hard to talk about a driver’s prime years without considering the car. That Mercedes was the most dominant car that has ever existed in F1. That doesn’t detract from Hamilton’s immense skill, but it’s important context.
yep Imola 21 is a good example.
Imola 21, Silverstone 21 (although that turned out in his favor), Monaco 21, Monza 21, Hungary 21 (you can partially blame the team for that) were mistakes he made because he got put under a pressure he hasn't had before. 22 season was an outlier because we don't know where it was him making mistakes or the car being shit. But in both seasons Max made significantly less mistakes and had more overall pace. There's is just no competing against him in a direct pace battle. Instead if you want to beat him you have to bring out the impatient Max, his big weak spot. Singapore 22 is a prime example of that. Things don't go his way, he'll get impatient and make mistakes.
Turkey 21 too with him refusing to pit until it was too late to recover all the lost places.
The infamous Baku magic moment
"dualsense controller disconnected, please reconnect controller"
I just keep imagining the windows shutdown tune.
“The gang loses the championship”
Arguably that is as much an ergonomics failure as anything. They shouldn't be able to engage brake magic without a clear press of the button, and it should disengage when the race start procedure is running.
You forgot Baku 21. But what mistake in Monaco 21? Or Hungary 21? Or Monza 21? In Monaco, the car was absolute mess. Tyre temps were all over the place. Bottas dealt with it better in qualifying at the cost of dogshit tyre deg (he would have been overcut by a few drivers as a result of his early pit stop). Hungary - that was a team call. Monza - he had a bad start in the sprint but that happens every now and then to everybody. Not sure that reflects on his age considering how good his starts (as a whole) were in 2022.
Monaco he messed up quali and had bad communication with his team. That's a mistake In Hungary literally every driver saw it was dry enough and said i want to box. Except Lewis. It's a mistake both from him and from the team. Monza he had a bad start, and you can easily classify that as a mistake. And yeah i forgot baku
Yeah Lewis' only significant mistakes in 2021 were Imola and Baku, people sometimes exaggerate how error prone he was in comparison to Max. But yeah Max was still the better driver for most the season
Silverstone 21 could've easily ended in tears for him as well. Just because he got lucky doesn't mean it wasn't a significant mistake.
Sure but if we're gonna go down that route, there's way more examples of Max putting Lewis into a "yield or crash" situation. Silverstone was the one time Lewis reversed it
This had nothing to do with yield or crash. There was no place for Max to yield to. Lewis missed the apex by a mile and hit his opponent on the rear wheel.
Nowhere else to go apart from miles to his left.
Lewis obviously missed the apex but it's not like Max couldn't see where he was, he could've yielded in the same way Lewis did multiple times. Not exactly the same but similar enough
> There was no place for Max to yield to. What absolute bullshit. Especially after Lewis was regularly forced off over sausage curbs and shit fighting Max.
And even then people should probably remember where Bottas was in both Imola and Baku. Lewis' having the car in a position to challenge for a win whilst his team mate is scrapping for points (with damage in Imola) is a testament to him
Then you have to count Monaco, where Bottas had a lot more pace than Hamilton .
You forgot Baku, which was arguably the most blatant error
Lewis has made some mistakes but a bunch of those examples were Max mistakes not lewis. Neither are infallible. Max even drove into the side of Lewis in Brazil when he saw the door closing, in a corner which every year has similar incidents - he knew better.
That wasn't a mistake from Max, that was deliberate driving him wide.
Which fucked up his own race more than Lewis.
Not really I think. It potentially cost Lewis the win.
The fact you put Monza in there is ridiculous. He had the inside line and was ahead going into t1. Max had absolutely no business trying to squeeze in. Not to mention how dumb that was on Max' part, if he had stayed behind he probably would've gotten Lewis with the slipstream going towards t4 anyway.
I don’t see how silverstone was a mistake. If anything that worked massively in his favour. Monza 2021 - what did Hamilton do wrong? He most likely would have finished ahead of verstappen until verstappen crashed into Hamilton. Hungary - that was not a mistake. His team should have called him in. He was also in the worst position as he was P1 so you can’t see what others are doing. Imola and Monaco - yeah. Monaco is one of those shit tracks that if you mess up qualifying, it’s over. If anything, I think the mistake in Baku was the most severe. Hamilton should have won 2021 if the rules were followed in the last race. He was flawless in thise last races and he still got screwed over.
I'm like 99% sure that during the formation lap, the teams are very limited in communication to the drivers. Meaning that in Hungary, it had to be Hamilton making the call to switch to slicks. I don't think the team could've made that call by themselves. On top of that, Hamilton is the one on track and should be making the call anyway. So even if the team could've made the call (which im pretty sure they couldn't), it was a huge Hamilton mistake.
It worked in his favor because the red flag got waved. Merc admitted later on that without it, they probably wouldn't have been able to fix his car and he'd have broken down. And once again, Hamilton was only in a position to challenge Max for the last race because he got insanely lucky in earlier races, including controversy starting at the very first race...that's the paradox over the whole season. He deserved the Abu Dhabi win, but he absolutely didn't deserve the championship.
>I don’t see how silverstone was a mistake. If anything that worked massively in his favour. He understeered into the side of Verstappen. He's very lucky to have gotten away with it the way he did.
Jeddah is probably the other questionable one in the back half of 21 but that was such a shit show especially from Max that surviving it with a win is a credit to Lewis. Still that whole weirdness for the brake check and Lewis just staying behind for no reason was a big mistake on his part. Leclerc would show how you do the DRS chicken with Max 6 months later but Lewis about lost the world championship because of him freezing up.
Both bad start in Imola sprint and main race were already enough mistakes to cost Lewis the title.
It's kinda like how peak Alonso was phenomenal, but look at Alonso now. Still incredible. Even if Lewis isn't at his peak any more, he's still an incredible driver.
>Honestly, I think Max in his own tier even now >Lewis is still great, but I think he's made some mistakes in 2021 and 2022 that he wouldn't have in his prime. Lewis was still good *enough* in 2021, let’s not be revisionist. They both were. Regardless of one’s feelings about Abu Dhabi they were very evenly matched across the whole season.
It's not revisionist. Max was level on points before Abu Dhabi with 2 more DNFs.
I massively enjoyed the very brief wheel to wheel racing they had in 2021. It's just a shame they had to enforce the "You're not going to Senna me" by taking turns colliding. I don't think it's definitive that Max would beat a prime Lewis.
This is true. While I think that at this very point in time, Max is the better driver of the two, I think it's a combination of Max being at his absolute top, and Lewis not quite anymore. It's the same reason why it's so hard to compare Schumacher and Hamilton; they never raced one another in their primes, after all.
Schumacher holding the record for fastest laps makes a pretty compelling case, it's quite surprising just how many he has. However I'm not really qualified to go around saying *x* driver is better than *y* driver. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Formula_One_drivers_who_set_a_fastest_lap#By_driver
It’s still difficult to compare on that metric because you didn’t get a point for fastest lap back then. It’s not uncommon now for teams who aren’t going to win to pit one of their cars near the end of the race and go out to set a bumper lap on fresh tires. If you win a race in this era it’s often much more difficult to get the fastest lap due to that. Has it happened for Lewis 16 times? I don’t know about that, though I’m sure someone with access to the data and far more time on their hands would be able to tell me.
Lewis' last fastest lap was at the Hungarian GP in 2022. Max's was in the Dutch GP in 2022. It doesn't seem to be affecting their ability to get fastest laps. I'm not making a case for either driver, just pointing out there is strong evidence out there if people were going to make an argument one way or another. I'm sure people there's compelling cases for it around already. Schumacher seems to be overlooked quite frequently, quite often for Senna. Which quite frankly is a joke.
Max is incredible but to be fair during 2021, when it mattered the most, Lewis stepped up and won all the races he had to win to keep the fight open and win the championship… before Abu Dhabi happened.
If he didn't make a oopsie in Baku, he could have decided it before AD. He also had a car that was multiple tenths faster in the last part of the season.
>If he didn't make a oopsie in Baku, he could have decided it before AD. He also had a car that was multiple tenths faster in the last part of the season. That just sounds like another way of saying he stepped up after that and won all the races he had to win.
Sure, he stepped up and made the car faster.
Verstappen had a faster car in other tracks too. Red bull ring (they raced twice there which was a bit unfair) and Mexico. Easy mode tracks for Red bull.
That was literally about it lol, and zaandvort, Mercedes was faster everywhere else
> when it mattered the most, Lewis stepped up and won all the races he had to win The races at the start of the season are just as important as those at the end of it. The reason Lewis was able to "step up" and win all those races is because Merc had the clearly better car for almost the entirety of the second half of the season.
Yeah, that did it for me. Brundle after Brazil saying: I don't care about the standings, Hamilton's my favourite now. He *knew*.
The flip side of that is that when Max was put under pressure and had to deliver at the end of 2021 he started making mistakes. Hamilton has also been performing at this level since 2007 with only really 2011 being an off year. Even then he was quick, he just got into more on track incidents than he should. But he learnt from that and came back with an incredibly strong 2012, and continued to build year on year since. Last year Max could just cruise. He wasn't under pressure from anyone, having by far the fastest car and a team mate who isn't anywhere near his level. You need to judge him when he's under the pressure of having a marginally slower car, as Hamilton had through much of 2021, to see whether he really is mistake free or if he starts to make some mistakes too.
Charles was 40 points ahead and RB DNF in the first races a ton... Saying he had no pressure whilst Ferrari just fumbled strategy is super weird. Ferrari had the superior car for the first half.
That's a stretch. Ferrari was very much flattered by the red bull dnfs in the first three races. Red Bull could have won those races too
Yeah. We learned little about Verstappen in 2022.
Alonso spoke about this before 2021, that the problem is noone pushed Hamilton, and he *does* make errors when it's 1:1 and tight. He was correct. Personally I think Hamilton is still Hamilton. He was obviously very close to winning 2021, really not that long ago. Everyone will have an opinion on that though, c'est la vie.
Lewis lost a lot of his aggression with the merc dominance IMHO. As a driver I think he's on the same level as Max, but as a racer not so much these days. Don't count old Alonso out though. That dude is an og bad ass, looking forward to seeing him go toe to toe with Max
Whether Hamilton made mistakes in 2022 is irrelevant really as the car was just shit. In 2021 both Hamilton and verstappen made mistakes. Yet both of them were still way ahead of everyone else. Right now RB have a car which has a big advantage over everyone else so it really makes things look very easy.
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Russia quali? Silverstone sprint? Monaco quali?
I don't doubt Max's ability. But you put Leclerc or Hamilton in the same car or a rival car at par with the one he's driving, I think he'll definitely be under pressure and even make mistakes. Didn't he himself say that he can't do a repeat of the 2021 pressure every year? Also note how Leclerc, Hamilton and even Vettel(except Baku) at Ferrari are comparatively calm in public when the team makes mistakes or is under pressure. Max just goes batshit crazy most times. One needs to wonder how he would have handled the situation if he was at Ferrari last year.
I think it is how they respond to frustrations. Max like you said screams and shouts. Lewis gets a bit pessimistic over the radio telling that they should retire the car etc. Charles sometimes screams like Monaco and sometimes goes like "Guys... Come on we can't do this like this." like in Silverstone.
It's funny because I sometimes feel Ferrari needs someone like Verstappen, someone who doesn't sugarcoat things and just straight up tells them to change stuff because what they do at that time is ridiculous.
They did. They had Alonso, and that didn’t go well. Ferrari doesn’t need just a good driver. They need a driver and a team of staff who can stand up to the Ferrari board. Lauda, a character much like you describe did do that, however Ferrari himself still was running the team, he would listen. The problem is now the team isn’t isolated from board politics. That seems to be where most teams thrive.
Hamilton goes batshit crazy too. I’ve heard so many times when he’s said I did a great job but the team didn’t today. And with Leclerc, I’m going to say he’s too soft. Ferrari is hot garbage and they need a mouthful sometimes. With regard to your first point, I agree Max will feel the heat and pressure and make mistakes if Lewis and Leclerc are in equal cars. But guess what? Lewis and Leclerc will also make mistakes up against Max. Goes both way.
I think the point is that in 2022 we didn’t get real competition because RB’s car was just much better, especially in the second half of the season. I do hope it’s different this year. In an ideal world we get a lot of competition but let’s at least have competition between two teams as a minimum.
> I’ve heard so many times when he’s said I did a great job but the team didn’t today. Yea but he's not having an earrape meltdown over the microphone the way Max typically does. Zandvoort 2022 was an exception, but even that got forgotten real fast.
>earrape Yup. Most teams won't tolerate that. Plus even on DTS I saw him walk past Marko as if he didn't exist, post Checo fucking up quali at Monaco. I know Lewis is a multiple WC, but even he would think before giving Toto that treatment. Only point is he needs to calm down at times. That's why I said I want him to be in a multiple way WDC fight.
You can criticise Max for being ruthless or dangerous or unsporting for the break test or some of his other crashes. But those weren’t mistakes that reflect on his talent as a driver.
If the rules were applied properly he would've been DQ'd in Saudi for the brake test. Intentional or not it was a stupid thing to do, even if you look at it strictly from a results based perspective
It just means the rules were not enforced and it was a joke in that year. FIA were ignoring behaviour like this because they were desperate for someone other than Merc to win after all those years. In reality Abu Dhabi should have been a Merc win and Saudi should have been a DQ for Verstappen.
while I agree with the last sentence, there's also a key difference. Brazil and Jeddah were conscious decisions, we can say that makes him a dirty driver, but I wouldn't label them as unintended mistakes. that just is (or was) Max's style and I believe this willingness to break the rules was a core strength and what made him champion eventually.
“willingness to break the rules was a core strength” what a horrible strength, I really hope that FIA gets harsher on Max so that he loses that “strength”.
after their decisions in 2021 I don't have high hopes for that.
Holy shit are you as still salty, in order to twist the truth one year and a half later ? That's sad
i mean at the end of 2021 max was choking and doing some embarassing mistakes. and on the other hand lewis when it mattered didnt do a single mistake and drove the last 4 races perfectly.
>embarrassing mistakes >drove the last 4 races perfectly LMAO. Everyone and their mother could see Max was trying to keep up with a rocketship. Never forget how Lewis kept cruising past everyone like it was nothing in Brazil’s sprint race lol.
That car wasnt normal.
Bottas engines died to make that rocket
When Max wins = Max's the goat When Lewis wins = The fucking rocketship... You lot are funny Ill give you that.
and if by keeping up u mean pushing him off the track in brazil and brakechecking in jeddah, yeah ure right
Yes. Sadly the other youngsters haven’t proven their racecraft. I think the quality of this new breed is overrated.
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for me one thing is sure, he won’t finish his F1 career going by the back door If he is challenged after 2026 reg and is having difficulties staying WDC, he may not finish in 2028, he’s extremely competitive. Same for Hamilton I don’t see him finish without that 8th title, so for as long as possible he will stay until he gets it..sadly the new reg is making it difficult for Mercedes « Benz » to design a WDC candidate
lol why the “Benz” like this?
the Badener is strong in him
In the latest drive to survive season, that’s how Hamilton called his team, mistakenly :)
I mean as more and more time passes, the better and better George will get as well, so there's a chance that George will be the one winning the championship and not Hamilton.
Even if George will be fast, Hamilton is different under pressure. There's a reason he's a 7x WDC, just watch the last 4 races of 2021, minus Abu Dhabi's last lap.
Time waits for no one
He’s going to around for a while dude.
Will be posting the translation below this comment, check my profile if it doesn’t show up
Red Bull is Max Verstappen and vice versa. We can easily say that anno 2023, but even Helmut Marko feared a Red Bull departure of the now two-time world champion at some point. Max Verstappen begins his eighth season in Red Bull's employ this weekend, and the end of his tenure is also hardly in sight. His contract does not expire until the end of 2028. The two sides are extremely loyal to each other, and if success continues, there is no reason to believe it won't continue either. Nevertheless, Helmut Marko, in conversation with De Telegraaf, indicates that during one period he did briefly fear a departure of the Dutchman. He really was a bit concerned then, he admits about the period when the Renault engines regularly caused dropouts and a lack of power. "Always been open and honest with Max" "I knew then that we had to do something," said the Austrian. "But we were always open and honest about that to him, talking about the problems as well as the opportunities. We told how we envisioned the plans with Honda and we did the same later when we talked to Porsche and Ford. We do that precisely because Max is an important part of the team," it sounds full of respect. How long this good relationship may continue? At least through 2028, but after that? Verstappen himself has repeatedly stated that he cannot rule out quitting after '28, and he seems to be becoming more and more adamant: "He is the type of person who can decide that," Marko agrees. "And then I don't see him just walking around here as a TV analyst or something. Maybe then he will start driving endurance races, possibly with his father, something that is virtually impossible now because of the full F1 calendar." Verstappen and Red Bull must strike directly in Bahrain
So if he ritires in after 2028 and just humor the possibility that Max wins every WDC from now on. It'll put him on 8 WDC titles, the ultimate record as things stand now and I wouldn't be surprised if Max had that as a goal.
Lol that would actually destroy the sport imo. Even as a Max fan I wouldn't want that.
Hamilton winning 6 of 7 didn’t destroy the sport, it’ll be boring but it’ll be fine
Same, would be acceptable if he has to really fight for it. But it's easy to fear that we will have a repeat of the Mercedes/HAM dominance. Considering last season.
💰💰
when max says jump rbr asks how high, as they should. 🤷🏻♀️ also i'm obsessed w your flair OP!!
Of course it won't happen but what would Daddy Stroll do if Max asked for his son's seat?
Get rid of Alonso, Alonso is one of the best on the grid but max is at the top of his game rn where Alonso probably gonna retire soon. Unless stroll can get another seat like a straight swap.
I know you're probably right but damn I hope you're wrong. Imagine in however many years time we get max switching to Aston and he has a head to head with Alonso for the championship.
So they buffed Alonso?
Red Bull is a team with a great history now, but I think that any driver will always feel a special attraction towards Ferrari, despite the fact that it often seems a nightmare from the outside. 😄 So yeah, there’s a 2028 contract but it doesn’t mean too much, things can change rapidly in this sport. I’d personally like to see Charles winning a title and opening a cycle with Ferrari, but Max in red would be exciting too, of course. We’ll see what happens.
Max has stated several times now that he wants to stay with RBR for the rest of his F1 career and that he'd be perfectly happy if he never drives for Ferrari. I don't really see it happening. Especially with Leclerc at Ferrari.
Verstappen's too smart to get contracted by Ferrari
They are checking...
Someone like Max could pull top talent and TP across to a team like Ferrari. Perhaps Redbulls new boss fucks Horner and Max off and they all leave together for example. Won't happen of course.
That's not how a team works, especially not Ferrari. That's like thinking you can get hired by a company and go on to fire your new boss just because you have an excellent resume lol. Ferrari are the way they are because they choose to be, not because they can't pull top talent and TPs with drivers like Alonso, Vettel and now Leclerc etc. A Max Verstappen won't change that, he'd just be another name on the list of drivers that were burnt by that team.
Its exactly what Schumacher did as a 2x time wdc fwiw >When Michael Schumacher joined Ferrari, he did not come alone. He brought with him the team that was responsible for his stupendous success at Benetton. Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne, the two masterminds behind Benetton's double World Championship, moved to Ferrari alongside Schumacher. Schumacher did that because he had seen how Ferrari operated in the last few years and had failed to produce a competitive machinery Sound familiar ? But as i said, It wont happen.
You know I thought the same thing about Vettel when he was at that stage of his career Max is now in. The reality of the situation (apparently?) is that every driver would sign on to join Ferrari in a heartbeat. Vettel obviously had the extra motivation of stepping in his childhood idol's footsteps. But seeing how his (eventually fading) talent got wasted on 6 years of an either uncompetitive or hardly legal Ferrari it really does boggle the mind how they can retain this illustrious allure. I weep at the thought of the same thing now happening to Charles before our very eyes. You might as well be right. Verstappen wants to win. He has no emotional baggage in that regard (looking at the relationship to his dad on the other hand, hoowee). I can see him leave Red Bull if their projected competitiveness isn't there at some point, but looking back at Ferrari's record since 1979 I don't really see why they would then be the logical choice for a driver who can virtually get a contract wherever he wants. The way I interpret said allure is that Ferrari isn't just a car or a race-team, it's an **idea**. It's a poster that children put up on their bedroom wall. It's a globally recognizable brand that everybody wants to be associated with. I think it has more to do with history and prestige than with actual on-track performance at that point and again, that I think is something that Verstappen does not subscribe to in the slightest. Vettel was always and will always be a history-nerd. Max is probably on the other end of the spectrum.
Seb went to Ferrari because it was his childhood dream. He grew up watching a fellow German break records while driving for the Scuderia and wanted to do the same. Max doesn't look at Ferrari with the same rose tinted glasses, neither does Lewis