Max Verstappen
Three times World Champion
The manufactured F1 World Champion many would say. But not the first of his kind. We have seen a few sportspersons that has been groomed from youth to become champions in their field. Venus and Serena Williams, Coco Gaulf comes to mind from the tennis world. Another in F1, Sir Lewis Hamilton also fits that mould as well. All tributes to the guiding vision of fathers.
As racing fans we all pine for F1 to produce the ultimate competitor clique. A magical meld of team, car and driver combo that smashes the competition, breaking longstanding records in its wake. Many are still recovering from the Mercedes-Hamilton years. But finding ourselves agog with the unfolding of the Redbull dominance. The second coming of Redbull is steered into the future in the prodigiously talented hands of Max Verstappen. In the mold of the previous Redbull-Vettel string of invincibility, Verstappen racks up three championships in a row. Leaving everyone pondering how far could he go.
From the Redbull benchmark, you could say he has to match Vettel’s achievement of four championships title as a minimum. But with the potency of this era of Adrian Newey penned cars, chances are that Verstappen may exceed the Vettel benchmark. But by how much and can he win it consecutively?
The last question may puzzle you. But there are a number of reasons to venture to ask that question. Firstly, Redbull was only able to dominate for a four years stretch in their last stint of domination. Secondly, the competition are getting pretty close. Mclaren seems to be on a development trajectory that may produce a Redbull beating car for the 2024 season. While Ferrari and Mercedes has been floundering in this 2023 season. They have made significant gains in closing the gap to Redbull. However, all of Redbull’s competitors are still playing catchup. How well they do depends largely on the result of the next development spur of the winter off season.
I think Verstappen has racked up his championship titles while the new crop of championship contenders were still finding their feet, also just as Mercedes had lost it ways with the new regulations. Developing that clique of competitive prowess to edge ahead of the competition takes time to meld together. As the frustration of Leclerc at Ferrari or Russell at Mercedes would show. There are some indications that the easy times may be coming to an end. The competition are hungry, roused with frustration and desperate to have a proper go at fighting for the driver’s championship title. We have seen all cars on the grid gradually morph into Redbull-like chassises. As such the 2024 season promises to be an even closer grid, with the shape-end of the grid tighter than we have seen in a while. The ideal situation would be to have McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari in the thick of the fight for the 2024 championship.
Max Verstappen the man, has been a controversial character with his no nonsence attitudes. He is frank and is unfiltered in his comments, which is refreshing in F1. Yea, bring back the iceman {Kimi Raikonen}. But Max Verstappen in Newey’s car is disconcertingly fast. He has and may likely to continue to enjoy unchallenged seasons, as Redbull has been unable to find a driver on Verstappen’s level to partner with him. And the competiton, though with highly capable drivers, were unable to produce a car on par with the Adrian Newey cars. This unprecedentedly high level of domination also produces unwanted criticism from the F1 community and fans.
The 2023 season has not been a competition for the championship titles; constructor’s or drivers, but it has been a demonstration of supreme excellence. A flawless car combined with a flawless driver. And supported by a team operating at supreme efficiency and effectiveness. This is the dream setup and no one knows it better than Mercedes and Hamilton.
The problem for Verstappen is, there has been no multiple F1 world champion who has won multiple world championships with such ease. Not even Vettel who had Webber to keep him on his toes always. Nor Hamilton who had Rosberg, Vettel and Verstappen himself to keep him well challenged. The strong start of the season for Perez seemed to diminish with each new upgrade to the car. Two initial strong race wins now translated into nearly half the points of Verstappen. It is hard to workout why Perez’s strong form dwindled progressively as the season progressed. This is quite opposite to a typical Perez season which typically gets stronger as the season progresses.
Whatever the case, Verstappen has won his last two driver’s title with no real wheel to wheel battles with any competitor in a similarly performant car. We could say, Redbull has failed to produce a car to allow Verstappen and Perez to have an equal chance of winning the driver’s championships. Unfortunately, this simple fact casts a shadow of doubt on the Verstappen championships. If it was so easy, you could argue that Sainz in the Redbull may have been equally invincible. You could extend that to any driver in the Mclaren, Mercedes and Ferrari 2023 cars, given Verstappen’s privileges at Redbull.
That aside, performing at the very high level that Verstappen operated his 2023 campaign is not as easy as it might seem. Turning up at every race weekend and extracting the very best the car has to offer with flawless execution at crazy speed with such miniscle tolerances, is not easy at all. The car might be brilliant, but can the driver be equally brilliant? Max Verstappen demonstrated the pinacle of driving excellence that a man-machine co-operation can produce. While it is ease to say any other driver may be just as successful at winning championships in the Redbull, how many would be able to produce the quality of driving and unwavering focus that we have witnessed from Verstappen this season.
Clearly the Verstappen story shall produce more to astonish us in the seasons to come. Right now let us pause to appreciate this historic F1 moment of seeing a new three times driver world champion being crowned in F1. With this title Verstappen joins a exclusive club of three time champions consisting of Sir Jack Brabham, Sir Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda, Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna.
Only five other F1 drivers have won more world titles: Michael Schumacher, Sir Lewis Hamilton, Juan Manuel Fangio, Alain Prost and Sebastian Vettel.
What an achievement!
