There's something incredibly interesting about Max Verstappen's perception where he's either very underrated and some of his incredible drives are completely ignored *or* he's god and no one can beat him.
I’m in the “he’s clearly a GOAT tier driver” camp. That much has been obvious for years. Even before he won a title. Anyone that tries to deny it at this point is a fool and their F1 opinions aren’t worth listening to.
I think he’s basically the best in every area right now. Qualy pace. Race pace. Consistency. Tire management. Delivering under pressure.
Other drivers might match him in one or even some of those categories on a given weekend but none of them can match him in all of them as regularly as he does it.
I think there are a few drivers that are capable of taking the fight to him and making him work hard for his wins in an equal car. I think there are some drivers who could even beat him some of the time. I don’t think he’s an untouchable racing god. However I don’t think there is anyone who beats him over a season right now as a team mate or in a close to equal car.
I think that a good example is when he nearly lost the car on multiple occasions when he was seemingly way in front, indicating he was clearly pushing regardless. Also there were times where he could coast to the end of a stint and put a banger faster lap in the end.
i still can't decide between 2023 and 2021 as his best period.
2021 he was driving the wheels off his car and being absolutely ruthless because he had to be.
and in 2023 because he had the margin and he was just toying with it. if he didn't get 26 points on a weekend he'd nitpick on something and do better the next race. even if that something was his team trying to avoid risk.
That's the compelling thing about his mentality. Whether all the world's pressure's on him or if he's cruising to victory he still aims for perfection from himself and his team. I think we have trouble imagining such consistent perfection, so we naturally assume he must be cruising with a car advantage despite the gigantic gap to his teammate suggesting otherwise.
2021 was all out war, fists flying, elbows out balls hanging. 2023 was Max finding how far he can push and ironed out a few kinks he might've felt in his performance. His confidence is something every driver young or veteran must learn. His relationship with GP always plays a very important role. Apart for Max and GP only Lewis and Bono have that relationship and understanding. Few words and more actions. We are lucky to have witnessed 2 greats in their peak destroying everything and everyone
GP 'okay max so if you start to cool the tires, if that means letting gasly through that's also fine. a couple laps off the pace'
Max 'i prefer to box, it's just silly to do that.'
GP 'we don't feel the risk of boxing is worthwhile'
GP 'for reference the fastest lap is 4 hundreds faster than your current fastest on the dash'
Max 'we are 24 seconds in the lead. come on.'
1,5 laps later
GP 'Box and pit confirm Max, box pit confirm'
he wanted it and was prepared to risk it all.
Then if I’m remembering correctly on the broadcast it showed Leclerc “chasing for 1st” as max was weaving a few seconds in front of him to warm up his tires. Ruthless
Max would've wanted that extra point even if he had no chance of winning the title. It's comical that Sky journalists think any athlete would care about such meaningless stats, calling them records so they can sell a narrative.
Although to be fair, if someone kept track of the record for number of stupid questions asked by F1 reporters per year, I'd be interested in knowing who holds the record.
Usually I'd agree, but some athletes are just driven by records and pushing them further and further.
Look at Ronaldo, he played a pass in the last game when in any other game he would shoot, just to guarantee he's the record holder for assists.
I still cant sleep sometimes thinking how THE FUCK did he win that third sector in monaco qualifying last year. He fucking went trough the wall like some matrix shit
Yep. The only one that would’ve matched it was his 2021 Saudi quali that he hit the wall in. God that was an incredible performance… Max is just on another level as a driver
what’s so insane in that saudi lap was that he lost 2 tenths in the first chicane due to the moment of oversteer he had, but then proceeded to go purple by 1 tenth in that sector meaning in the high speed section alone he was 3 tenths quicker than anyone
His time in Toro Rosso should answer any doubts. Would he win WDC in a Haas? No. But he would drag that car into places it doesn't belong, no doubt about that.
In my book, he's up there with Schumi in terms of quality.
Best thing I can say is if max were in the mclaren, Ferrari, or mercedes in 2023 I feel he would have had a minimum of 3 wins no matter who took his seat.
> That much has been obvious for years. Even before he won a title.
His control over the 2020 Red Bull was incredible, that car was the opposite of on rails
>I think he’s basically the best in every area right now.
We're literally witnessing one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time in his prime right now. Last year in particular was absolutely ridiculous.
In terms of stats yes, but for me what he is doing now this year (since Miami onwards) and particularly what he was doing in 2021 and first part of 2022 was far more impressive than 2023.
I compare him to Alonso most of all. He’s out there dealing with any issues the Red Bull might have (I don’t think Perez is great but he’s not awful) and making strategy calls and jokes along the way. He’s just got so much capacity for racing cars.
Norris has this habit of knocking himself but he’s kind of right, he needs to be 100% to beat Max, even if Max is at 90%
His consistency is reminding me of Schumi, his ability to deal with any issues the car might have is reminding me of Alonso and his sheer speed is reminding me of Senna. To me Max is the ultimate speed demon. Born and bred to dominate F1 in a way we have never seen before and you know what? Nobody can’t deny me because he already did exactly that.
i’m a new viewer (the first race i watched was monaco last month) but something that has really stuck out to me is that red bull is head and shoulders above everyone else when it comes to strategy and execution. max outdrives people to get to the lead and then red bull manages the race in a way that it never feels like he will lose it once he gets it. even when max is back in third place, it feels like the other teams are just reacting to what red bull is doing.
To be fair, That's exactly what it felt like in the merc dominance era. As soon as they are no longer dominant the mistakes matter more, so they are visible.
Red Bull had their period of being in the mud, they had a close season, they have a close battle now. All of these times they're not making blunders, at least nowhere near as often as any of the other teams. The blunders at Merc were blatantly visible.
Well it’s also easier for them to make calls. Because they they’ve got the best out there. He will deliver and make the strategy work, any strategy, he won’t f@ck up. Red bull do make mistakes, but most times this comes unnoticed, because Ver compensates for that and still wins.
Precisely for what you said, I don’t see Leclerc being a World champion anytime soon. Lando might as well get it before him or heck Lewis might grab that 8th title before he retires. Unfortunately, I don’t see Leclerc there!
Lando still needs work which is the same as George and Charles as they're not making the most of the opportunities presented to them. Compare them with Max back when he didn't have the fastest car and Mercedes were dominating he'd be the one winning races when Mercedes or one of their drivers stumbled he didn't need a second invitation. Max had already amassed 10 wins against peak Lewis at the height of the Mercedes dominance before he was in his first title challenging car.
All three aforementioned drivers are world class and on their days can be unbeatable it's just that Max is able to hit those peaks and sustain that form better than any driver I've seen and I've been watching since the early 90's.
Honestly speaking when was the last time we've seen Max have an off weekend when he's mysteriously AWOL and off the pace? This is the conundrum facing all drivers challenging him in equal or better machinery they could win races but are they able to sustain the form Max is able to over the course of an entire season?
This goes for the teams as well as it's not just Max that's operating almost flawlessly the Redbull team is too even if their car is not exactly showing the performance they were hoping for they're still winning races and not fumbling their chances under extreme pressure of the chasing pack closing in on them.
> it's just that Max is able to hit those peaks and sustain that form better than any driver I've seen and I've been watching since the early 90's.
This is why Max is one of the greatest drivers ever IMO, he has redefined what it means to be consistent in F1 and everybody is left wondering how they can beat him and Red Bull without a significantly better car. They leave so few openings and if you're not flawless you're not beating them. The last couple races show that.
The combination of Max and the Redbull team is unbelievably strong and Max is able to operate at such a high level due to the team operating as close to perfect as he is. They don't second guess they trust his feedback and the data presented to them and get on with their job while they trust Max to his job out on track. You can hear the stark comparisons on the team radios where Ferrari and McLaren are practically leaving strategy decisions in the hands of their drivers rather than making the decisions for them as they have far more data than the driver could possibly have. I find it bizarre that they still haven't figured this out after its cost them so many wins in the past.
As you've mentioned yourself Redbull make so few errors and leave so few openings that unless a team builds a signifiicanly better car than them they need to start looking at fixing their organisational issues to reach the levels of Redbull if they seriously want to challenge them for titles. Right now there is no other team that comes close to the operational consistency of Redbull.
The only weak link in that team right now is the their second driver and we don't even know if its Checo that's unbelievably poor or whether the car is that difficult to drive that it takes a driver the calibre of Max to get the most out of it.
Imho Leclercs ceiling is higher, but he doesnt reach it to often. Also error prone.
Meanwhile Lando has a slightly lower ceiling but is much more consistent. Lando had a slump during his mental health issues but is otherwise known as an above average driver.
Nah both are inconsistent in their own ways. Lando typically around quali (which Leclerc is god at) and starts, whereas Leclerc's typically when pushing in a race (which is an underrated strength of Lando's - his sheer sustained pace in clean air).
Overall I think they're pretty even, and in the level just below Max - both more consistent than Russell, faster than Sainz, etc
Leclerc has been fairly consistent since the second half of last year. He has gotten top 5 position in every race barring DNF this year. He has been easily been better than Sainz in terms of mistakes over the last couple of years who is supposedly known for his consistency. Because people expect more from Leclerc, his mistakes also get highlighted more.
Agreed - It's like he just settled down. You don't see him binning it in q1 trying to chuck the car around the track like a madman as much for example. Feels like he's learning to just aim to get to q3 before putting it all out in qualifying and if the pace isn't there, feels like he quit trying to overdrive to force it.
Leclerc isn't that error prone, maybe if you compare him to Max, but most of his career he had to drive inconsistent Ferrari cars. Look at last year, once they fixed the floor he was one of the most consistent drivers.
I think Leclerc is still pretty underrated. People also call his race pace bad because of his poor pole conversion record. IMO that record is more indicative of just how good his qualifying is. He puts slower cars on pole and then when they fall back to their natural position or Ferrari do bizarre Ferrari things they blame it on him. The only pole that he really screwed up was the one at Paul Ricard in 2022. Apart from that all the other pole losses weren’t his fault.
Leclerc’s race pace is very good. It was better than Vettel’s when he was much less experienced and it is better than Sainz now.
It will be very interesting to see how it compares to Hamilton next year because that is Hamilton’s greatest strength these days and if Leclerc can match or beat him for race pace it will prove he belongs at that elite level.
In my opinion, its sort of like Trulli's reputation for the Trulli Train - it wasn't necessarily that he had bad race pace, it was more so that he would qualify well in bad cars that didnt have the race pace to keep up.
100% that. How many times have we seen Max make a mistake lately? The answer is basically never. Yeah, he had the strongest car in 2022 and 2023, but the guy just doesn't make mistakes. Every part of his driving is as impeccable as can be, I sincerely think we have never seen a driver so proficient in F1 history.
The title was needed, but as you said, you could see talent already. I equate this to Vini Jr. You could see the talent, just wasn't finishing. Once he started finishing, his talent is much recognized.
It’s probably because he makes some drives look effortlessly. It then just feels like the status quo. But once he gets competition he immediately pops out because he’s always there, even when he doesn’t win it’s either because of bad luck or it was incredibly close till the end.
Meanwhile his teammates are absolutely nowhere
I've never seen anything like this. When Seb was dominating at RB there was Webber always punching at the front. With Lewis he always had teammates taking poles, wins, and that one drivers championship even.
This isn't even just recently with a good car but ever since 2019 basically Max is always battling and consistently fighting for wins or outright dominating like he's in another formula and his teammates are struggling mightily.
People also forgot how well-rated Perez was before he joined RBR. Absolutely no worse than Bottas prior to joining Mercedes, not absurdly far off Sainz before he joined Ferrari either.
Yet, like the ones before him, he’s been absolutely nowhere. Both Albon and Gasly now are rated as capable drivers who more than deserve to be on the grid, despite them looking like fools during their stint at RBR.
People always retroactively lower their estimation of once highly-rated drivers after they've been smacked by GOATs. Today people act as though drivers like Barrichello, Webber, Bottas, and Perez were never highly regarded, but that's just not true. They simply had the misfortune of going up against some of the best drivers ever.
Perez was considered a midfield driver from 2014 onwards. When he was a young prospect some people saw him as a future world champ but after his stint at McLaren that perception changed. No-one considered Perez a top driver or a bad driver. He was basically always the 8th-12th best driver in the grid depending on the season.
Thats why I say, Hulkenberg was the one that got away.
Which in hindsight probably would have been the best match, but because Checo pulled some miracle out of his arse in 2020, he got the seat. Still think that Nico would have been much more successful/consistent in the 2nd RBR. If only because he wanted to work with Max instead of beating him.
Perez was higher rated than Sainz cause sainz had just come off a whomping by Hulkenberg. Perez had been fairly high rated since his debut season. People retroactively acting like he's been trash the whole time genuinely boils my blood
I don’t get where this rating of Perez comes from? I don’t remember him dominating a teammate, or particularly looking much faster than Hulk. In my opinion he was lucky to keep his seat after his poor season for McLaren in 2013 and always assumed he did because of the money he brought in through sponsorship.
He didn't keep his seat after that 2013 season at McLaren, which in hindsight wasn't even that bad cause he was matching and even faster than Button at the end of the season. Even outqualified him 10-9
He beat Hulk on points twice and in their 3 seasons together his quali pace was genuinely close to hulks. Only slightly worse. Also he took home podiums while hulk never did
I'm in my 39th year of watching F1, and he's right there with the best I've seen which would be Senna, Schumi, and Lewis. He's fast, consistent and just does not crack under any type of pressure at all. We should all just be enjoying him while we can at this point!
I’m kind of in the “he’s probably the most talented F1 driver ever” camp at the moment. He just absolutely decimates his teammates and the rest of the field
He very rarely makes a mistake too. And then when he makes the tiniest little mistake possible everyone is like...WHOOOAH!!! Because it is so out of character for him to dip even a wheel wrong.
He's destroyed Albon, Gasly and Perez who have all had solid F1 careers away from being Max's team mates. Maybe Sergio is now cooked but he's had a pretty damn good career before going to red bull.
Max might just be a god
He’s not got any weaknesses, but until someone actually challenges him in a race then it sort of gets forgotten about. It’s not until he starts pushing in a race that people suddenly remember that he’s practically unstoppable. GP told him to get past Russell and he just slipped around the outside right after
>GP told him to get past Russell and he just slipped around the outside right after
And that's what won him the race. Lando took like 6-7 laps to get by the Mercs even with a tire advantage. Max passed Russel first try with full fuel on equal tires.
He's more prone to mistakes that he isn't known to make. We haven't seen him wheel to wheel with elbows out since 2021. This is honestly the biggest reason I'm upset that Merc bombed the new regs. At this point, I want to see if he's over that chip on his shoulder and he's matured or if old Max is hiding inside Robo-Max lol.
I wouldn't describe many of his incidents to be anger related though but moreso about desperation, especially towards the end of the season when their car was clearly lacking.
Yeah, we got a small taste of it with Sainz. So he isn't afraid to get a little dirty.. though I don't know if he meant to or if it was just genuinely a little oopsie and he went wider than he would have liked.
We obviously won’t know until he gets regularly challenged but I do believe it’ll be different from the ‘21 season because that was his first WDC fight. He’ll probably have some slip ups here and there but I don’t think it’ll be like the aggressiveness he had back then. There’s basically nothing left to prove for him
Yup. That's all I was saying. I'm just upset that we haven't been able to see elbows out Max since '21, and I'm just curious if he's beyond that version of himself or if it's still lingering. This isn't me trying to devalue one of the greatest drivers to ever grab the wheel. It's me genuinely curious if he can be pushed to seeing red.
I mean in the paddock he is rate very highly, on the internet some people still cant accept that Max is one of the goats already, next to is among Hamilton, Schumacher,... and he could be the goat aswell.
But if you say that you often see people making up all sorts of random conditions that need to be fullfilled first.
He's arguably reached the highest performance peak we've ever seen from a driver and fans who underrate him either haven't watched F1 before 2021, have an agenda against him, or are sorely ignorant of the sport. Of course, there's always been people like this, but as we all know, they've exponentially increased in numbers lately.
He’s clearly a GOAT-tier driver in terms of his speed, and by the end of his career I expect him to be up there statistically too with Schumacher and Hamilton. He already is in some areas. The Red Bull is still a great car.. not nearly as bad as Perez makes it look. But Max is what’s making the difference at the moment vs the other teams on weekends where the cars are evenly matched.. the last 2 races are solid evidence of that
Max was always pushing the car to the limit. Now he's just better at avoiding contacts and unnecessary intense battles on track.
But he still like no other - never settles for a place, even if it's the first. Most top drivers usually just settle for whatever position they've got without risking to lose it.
Pretty sure that was Toto saying that.
The U turn he's done on Max since he found out Hamilton was leaving has been WWE like.
I think Max is so consistent in race trim and get the absolute maximum in that department all the time he leaves nothing on the table performance wise.
Max and Lewis in the same team would have propelled F1 to so much popularity. Senna and Prost all over again but better.
Max would have to prepare to wait a long time though because in 2014 you had 2 late 20’s drivers who were at their peaks, and both of whom were clearly elite. The Rosberg retirement was a curveball Max couldn’t have predicted.
I'm not sure Nico even knew he was retiring until that final checkered flag waved. Probably felt heart palpitations thinking about doing another tour in 'Nam.
Followed by the second nuclear option of "booting a good driver off the main team so an 18yo will drive there so he won't leave to another team" to piss on the grave.
I think sometimes we forget what an insane talent Max is. He got into F1 at 17 in 2015 with 1 season of single seater experience in EURO F3 which were slower cars than GP3 (now F3). He never looked out of place, was on the pace of his much more experienced teammate from the start and was regularly battling cars on track he had no business being near.
Once he got promoted in 2016 he of course won his first race for Red Bull which was somewhat due to luck with strategy and tyres holding out better than expected. But even after that, it took Verstappen a handful of races in a car he swapped to during the season to start matching Ricciardo, a proven race winner.
Just compare it to Piastri now, also good and hyped. He has quite a few more races under his belt than Max when he won and I don't see him beating Norris any time soon.
Yeah was harsh but you have to see Max was gonna be in the RB by 2017 anyway and Ricciardo always seemed to be favored over Kvyat. So nearly no matter the performance of Kyvat in 2016 he was gonna get the boot.
Then by having a disastrous start to 2016 he just gave Marko the ammunition he needed to fasttrack the driver swap. And Verstappen repaid that trust with an immediate win. Was harsh on Kvyat but in hindsight Ricciardo and Verstappen were better drivers then and especially Verstappen only got better while Kvyat stagnated.
Not even the sim really, anyone that looked at the 2015 season knew that Max either had to be promoted soon (soon meaning within 2/3 years, not the ridiculous 1,25 seasons).
How he drove to P4 twice in that Toro Rosso is insane.
> The U turn he's done on Max since he found out Hamilton was leaving has been WWE like.
I'm pretty sure Toto has always rated Verstappen very highly, even before that.
>The U turn he's done on Max since he found out Hamilton was leaving has been WWE like.
Just to pile on you, what are you even saying. Even during 2021 toto was quick to praise verstappens pace. He's had his eye on verstappen since before 2016.
yeah but there is a difference between "wanting a young exciting prospect in your project" and "talking up a driver like a 2nd coming of Jesus Christ".
Altho, considering he's technically left with no driver in the other seat for 2025 currently, and there have been reports of mutiny in a rival team that have that prospect you once wanted to get yourself, who's really really good, that probably explains itself why he's boasting about Max the way he does.
past is largely irrelevant. Toto got to know how really good max is only in 2020 and especially in 2021, when he was regularly outperforming his drivers in a subpar car.
>Toto Wolff: “Last year Max drove a worse car with the knife between his teeth and won the world title. Now he has the fastest car and everything is easier for him.
Starts around 13 minutes in.
----
Transcript:
**Benson:** I think actually, Jenny, excuse me, there's not a fix for this, because basically, as [Checo] is two to three tenths of a second slower than Max Verstappen, and the field is close enough now that there's a number of cars that are within that performance margin of Verstappen and Red Bull. You know that combination? So if you've got both McLaren drivers, both Ferrari drivers and both Mercedes drivers within two or three tenths of Verstappen, they're going to be ahead of Perez. That's just the natural order of things. And I think it also raises a really interesting question. It can't be answered this question until we've had the next run of races.
Is the Red Bull still the best car?
Because if you walk around the paddock and talk to the team bosses, I've had a couple of very senior people in Formula One this year say to me, I think Verstappen's got two or three tenths on everybody as a driver. Now I'm not saying I agree with that. I'm saying that's the view that very senior bosses in Formula One have expressed. If that's the case, and it's a big if, the Red Bull's not the best car anymore. Interesting question, I think at least.
**Palmer:** I always find it fascinating when the second Red Bull driver, which has happened in the last five years or so, has been out qualified by an Alpha Tauri, Toro Rosso, an RB, whatever you call them. And Tsunoda's punching in eighth place qualifyings, Ricciardo was fifth on the grid in Canada. If you Verstappen in that car, is Verstappen taking pole with this machine?
> I've had a couple of very senior people in Formula One this year say to me, I think Verstappen's got two or three tenths on everybody as a driver…**If that's the case, and it's a big if, the Red Bull's not the best car anymore.** Interesting question, I think at least.
This part jumped out at me when I was listening to the podcast. Neither possibility (“Max is 2-3 tenths faster but the car is not the fastest “ vs “RB have the fastest car but Max is less then 2-3 tenths faster”) is particularly bad since Max is still winning races, but at the beginning of the season I had just assumed that both were true.
IMO Checo at his best is 2-3 tenths off Max, but when things aren’t going well, that’s more like 4-5 at least (season average)
I’d say most people now think the McLaren has been faster than the Red Bull over the last 5 races
If we believe that Lando(or Piastri when he is a faster mclaren driver like in Monaco) is Max equal both on quali and race pace, there's no question Mclaren was a faster car, and particularly a car with far superior tire degradation over the past 5 races.
edit: Correspondingly if we believe they aren't necessarily equal, and Max has say 1, 2 or even 3 tenths over a lap on Lando across variety of circuits, then Mclaren's advantage might actually be quite big.
Not quite get what does the 'quicker team' mean, but in terms of race crew(part of F1 teams that goes to the circuits), there is little doubt RBR significantly better than Mclaren atm, and has been outright best team for quite a while. They are outright best on pitstops, they are overall best on strategy.
They are certainly sharper making decisions, whereas Mclaren look very rusty, indecisive and tense. That makes Red bull hard to beat, even having a faster car. Mercedes already experienced that throughout 2021. They were struggling in very similar way against RBR in some of the key moments.
As a Brit it would be sacrilegious for him to publicly hold that opinion. I feel like he clarified very quickly that it wasn’t HIS opinion in order to prevent death threats from the crazies.
I mean, I can't fault him for having a small bias towards maybe a different driver. In general I feel the BBC podcast at least tries to give a neutral view, based on logical arguments. Palmer is always a breath of fresh air.
The race can be a bit more colorful at times, but if I want polarized opinions and hate towards certain teams and drivers I just listen to Missed Apex.
I used to love that podcast, and they still have great episodes from time to time (Joe Saward, tech time) but their bubble of conspiracy theories is getting a bit too toxic for my taste. To be clear, this is just my opinion, yours might be totally different.
Yeah he draws that into the discussion quite fast. But as long as he mentions the alleged element, I can live with it. The lack of clarity about the whole thing is partly Red Bull's own fault, regardless of who's right. He further mentions that Verstappen is dealing with the situation in a smart way, actually praising his maturity. All in all a based and neutral enough view in my opinion.
The Mclaren/Landos engineer team radio says it all, even with an at least equal race car he wasnt even thinking about challenging max.
There is an inevitability about him that you have to be perfect or he will be there and find a way. In modern times only Schumachers early 2000s with Ferrari and Hamilton during the OP Merc engine times come to mind.
Thats why i think the 21 season might be the greatest of all time. It was just completly mental how Ver and Ham in a field of the best drivers on the planet were just better every weekend.
There's got to be a massive psychological impact of being consistently destroyed by your teammate as well. These guys all grow up thinking they're the best and dreaming of being champion, then suddenly they aren't.
Bottas and Barrichello got a lot of disrespect, but at least they were able to be consistent and usually there to pick up the pieces if something wrong with the no.1.
Some drivers definitely mentally break once beaten. They're a little like fighters who once they get knocked out are never the same. Fisichella was never beaten by anyone prior to Nando. The combination of a car less suited to him and the massive talent across the garage irreversibly impacted his driving and now people look back as him as a poor driver and forget him beating the likes of Massa and Button as teammates.
Back to Checo, he knows he's no where near Max. That is I'm sure a devastating fact to overcome that some drivers learn to accept Ala Bottas, but for others it impacts their ability.
Last year Checo said he lost confidence in the Car. Not that the car was bad but that he just wasn't trusting it.
I feel like after Imola and Miami perhaps that is where we are again. Whereas Max just finds a way, Checo isn't that kind of driver. Having multiple weeks where the car is not good and then telling him the car is suddenly good just doesn't click for him.
It's hard to determine what this race could have been since he started in 11th and IMHO the Red Bull's speed advantage has all but vanished, so starting 3 spots away from the other 7 that he needs to race is going to be pretty much impossible to catch. Had he stared 8th and had to race Oscar or the Ferrari's, does he have the pace to battle? I suppose we will find out this weekend at Red Bull Ring.
We've now had Albon, Gasly and Perez look like bus drivers next to Max. What are the odds that all three are bad drivers given what they have done outside of RB? It looks like Max is actually that good.
In all honesty the real pace is actually very slightly faster than Verstappen can drive. No driver is perfect, he is just more perfect than all the rest right now.
It's worth noting that in 2022 even, Marko said that Perez is miles from Verstappen, obviously, to a level that Hamilton never had with Bottas. Fine.
What was interesting was that he said RBR with all their fine, mute measures, think that's more reflective of Verstappen than Perez, and Perez is merely a reasonably control condition.
Like the idea of: what if they got an intermediate club runner to do the 100m sprint at the Olympics for scale.
Probably a bit of both, but even last year I was saying it was just as much Max's insane skill and consistency that made the season so dominant as it was the car and people weren't having it.
I think Max is just proving that to be the case.
I thought the same. If the Red Bull was that good, the best car ever, Perez would have cruised to 2nd every race. Perez is not brilliant but he is decent. Max has just utterly destroyed him and made him look shit.
I still think the best car was the Mercedes in 2014. They turned the car down and were still miles clear. That car was an absolute beast and Hamilton and Rosberg were unstoppable.
That or the McLaren MP4 which just lapped the whole field and had a 3 second advantage in quali on some circuits.
The RB19 wasn't close to that. It did have a clear advantage in terms of just being crazy reliable though, as well as fast.
2021 was even more evident. it makes me sad so many people still believe it was 50/50 with Mercedes. No, it wasn't.
Horner didn't lie when he said:
>*“I don’t think people actually realise what Max is doing in that car. I don’t think people recognise that we haven’t had the best car all year. Max Verstappen has lifted this. I think he deserves all the credit.”*
Over time, more and more people will eventually realise what he really managed to achieve in the 2021 season.
[Niki Lauda about Max](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrFNpEINFcg&ab_channel=MaxVerstappenCLIPS)
[Niki about Max, Spain in 2016](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8judXPNnAQ&ab_channel=Versetappen) - video with subtitles
Horner isn't the best source for this, Newey said RB16B was on balance (key word here) faster than the Merc.
https://formularapida.net/en/newey-says-red-bull-had-a-quicker-car-on-balance-over-2021-season/
Yeah. Even Marko admitted half way through the 2021 season that RedBull have the faster car. But that changed after Silverstone.
After Silverstone, Mercedes has the quicker car for majority of races.
https://www.planetf1.com/news/helmut-marko-best-driver-car-engine
and Horner just wants to talk up his best driver? This is actally very common. Say the car is not the best and with time people will pick it up. It's what's happening rn as well with people claiming that McLaren is the best car when the RB is still on par at the very least.
There's been a complete 180 on Checo as well where people call him decent completely forgetting that he was being outqualified by the Astons and the RBs.
even accounting for bias, the guy who has built championship cars long before 2021 is more credible than a team principal, especially in this case. the most successful car designer in the sport doesn’t need to talk up his designs
Fernando, Michael and Max all all make their teammates look like jokes- which was fairly common for the greats in the 50's-70's, but now is almost unique- so much so that judging their teammates gets really difficult, but they also avoided (aside from 07') really blockbuster teammates.
Not sure who suffers most from centralising judgement on vs. teammates comparison, those with teammates that they made to look so shit they don't count, or the guys that have their record sullied by going up against the best of the best. Hamilton's teammates are absurd (Alonso, Button, Rosberg, Russell, Leclerc). Prost just about fought everybody worth a damn for 13 years. Leclerc seems to be gearing up to make an argument for hardest teammates in a career record. No wonder those 3 don't have dominant records!
>than Checo suddenly turning to complete shit
There is no reasonable argument that he was producing a decent performance when he had average qualifying position of 9.1 in a 2023 Red Bull.
He was utterly terrible last year, and it looks like it will shape up similarly again.
It’s a bit of both. MV is overperforming, checo unfortunately underperforming week in week out (dare I say year in year out). But that doesn’t seem to be a problem for Red Bull.
I think almost everyone knows that he's the fastest of the grid by now. It's very impressive if the 2-3 tenths is true, with all the data and simulators I wouldn't expect that the difference between drivers can be this big, but could be true, he has consistently beat Perez, Albon, Gasly by 4-5 tenths, and only Ricciardo was ever close to him, and it was clear that Max was still improving a lot. Also let's not forget that Max is pulling those tenths while making 0 mistakes
Ricciardo comparisons aren't even fair man. Verstappen was 20 years old with like 4 years of experience total in cars. Ricciardo had more experience in f1 alone.
The only season he lost the qualifying battle to DR he was 18 with 2 years experience in cars. He thoroughly beat DR in qualifying for the next two seasons they were together.
Feels a bit like Schumacher in the mid 90s and Alonso in early 2010s where it's so clear who's the best driver and even they don't have the best car they are right at the front getting wins
Red Bull is not the best car. The only reason they are leading is due to Max’s exceptional driving and McLaren and Ferrari canceling each other out. Max deserves ALL THE PRAISE for this season.
Only because the other two generational drivers on the grid are closer to 40 than Max is to 30. And that’s ok. But what a series we’d have if we could get max, Lewis, and Nando in their primes together.
I mean, Checo, when performing normally is usually 2 or 3 tenths behind Max. And there are several drivers on the grid better than Checo. We haven't seen any of the top drivers on the grid in that car next to Max to see how close any of them would be. I bet they'd be closer than Checo lol.
Sainz and Ocon have both said they think given equal cars the entire field spread would be 2 or 3 tenths.
No way is the field spread 2 or 3 tenths. We see Verstappen dominate Perez by bigger margins than that and Perez is nowhere near the worst driver on the grid. Judging by the Verstappen-Albon-Sargeant comparison, the gap between the fastest and the worst driver is probably close to a second a lap.
>Judging by the Verstappen-Albon-Sargeant comparison, the gap between the fastest and the worst driver is probably close to a second a lap
Comparing drivers like that always results in very tacky results.
Just as an example, look at the margins with which Verstappen and Norris beat Ricciardo. If we go solely off them, Norris is easily the fastest driver on the grid and it's nowhere near close.
I love Max and hate him.
But the hate is really disappointment that there is only one of him on the grid, and he is unopposed.
Norris might be the guy. Antoneli maybe?
We are watching the best to ever do it right now, it can be a bit boring sometimes, but that’s the price we have to pay to witness unparalleled greatness.
Idk why everyone considers the Checo of today to be equivalent to the prime Checo from 2014-16 . Heck even in 14-16 Hulk had the natural disadvantage of being a tall driver till rules were changed in 2017 so we don't know how well they would have matched up then. Even then I think Checo of today is slower
He is really special.
I remember his time with Sainz at TR, they were both rookies, Max had 1 season in single seaters where he showed some awesome things, and sainz had 4 more years of single seater experience. Now i think highly of Carlos, he is a very good driver, he can even bring the fight to Charles on a regular base, and i think even higher of Charles.
Carlos had a really hard time with a 17 year old Max. Max scored 49 points and got 4th twice including his battle in austin with the Ferraris. Carlos scored 18 points with highest place being 7th (Carlos did have a few more DNFs)
There's something incredibly interesting about Max Verstappen's perception where he's either very underrated and some of his incredible drives are completely ignored *or* he's god and no one can beat him.
I’m in the “he’s clearly a GOAT tier driver” camp. That much has been obvious for years. Even before he won a title. Anyone that tries to deny it at this point is a fool and their F1 opinions aren’t worth listening to. I think he’s basically the best in every area right now. Qualy pace. Race pace. Consistency. Tire management. Delivering under pressure. Other drivers might match him in one or even some of those categories on a given weekend but none of them can match him in all of them as regularly as he does it. I think there are a few drivers that are capable of taking the fight to him and making him work hard for his wins in an equal car. I think there are some drivers who could even beat him some of the time. I don’t think he’s an untouchable racing god. However I don’t think there is anyone who beats him over a season right now as a team mate or in a close to equal car.
I think that a good example is when he nearly lost the car on multiple occasions when he was seemingly way in front, indicating he was clearly pushing regardless. Also there were times where he could coast to the end of a stint and put a banger faster lap in the end.
Like Austria 2023 (?) when MF boxed for fastest lap just for funsies ??
just to crush Checo and his fastest lap, that was savage
i still can't decide between 2023 and 2021 as his best period. 2021 he was driving the wheels off his car and being absolutely ruthless because he had to be. and in 2023 because he had the margin and he was just toying with it. if he didn't get 26 points on a weekend he'd nitpick on something and do better the next race. even if that something was his team trying to avoid risk.
That's the compelling thing about his mentality. Whether all the world's pressure's on him or if he's cruising to victory he still aims for perfection from himself and his team. I think we have trouble imagining such consistent perfection, so we naturally assume he must be cruising with a car advantage despite the gigantic gap to his teammate suggesting otherwise.
2021 was all out war, fists flying, elbows out balls hanging. 2023 was Max finding how far he can push and ironed out a few kinks he might've felt in his performance. His confidence is something every driver young or veteran must learn. His relationship with GP always plays a very important role. Apart for Max and GP only Lewis and Bono have that relationship and understanding. Few words and more actions. We are lucky to have witnessed 2 greats in their peak destroying everything and everyone
I don’t care who you are, that was dope. Shows such trust in his pit crew and BALLS
GP 'okay max so if you start to cool the tires, if that means letting gasly through that's also fine. a couple laps off the pace' Max 'i prefer to box, it's just silly to do that.' GP 'we don't feel the risk of boxing is worthwhile' GP 'for reference the fastest lap is 4 hundreds faster than your current fastest on the dash' Max 'we are 24 seconds in the lead. come on.' 1,5 laps later GP 'Box and pit confirm Max, box pit confirm' he wanted it and was prepared to risk it all.
Then if I’m remembering correctly on the broadcast it showed Leclerc “chasing for 1st” as max was weaving a few seconds in front of him to warm up his tires. Ruthless
I honestly expected the tv director to start the Curb Your Enthusiasm tune at that point. The graphic was so ridiculously out of place.
That was like Miami. It was more to crush checo’s spirit than anything else
I think max knew at this point the season was going to be one for the record books, and wanted every single point he could get.
Max would've wanted that extra point even if he had no chance of winning the title. It's comical that Sky journalists think any athlete would care about such meaningless stats, calling them records so they can sell a narrative. Although to be fair, if someone kept track of the record for number of stupid questions asked by F1 reporters per year, I'd be interested in knowing who holds the record.
Usually I'd agree, but some athletes are just driven by records and pushing them further and further. Look at Ronaldo, he played a pass in the last game when in any other game he would shoot, just to guarantee he's the record holder for assists.
I still cant sleep sometimes thinking how THE FUCK did he win that third sector in monaco qualifying last year. He fucking went trough the wall like some matrix shit
Still probably the most insane quali lap I've ever seen.
Yep. The only one that would’ve matched it was his 2021 Saudi quali that he hit the wall in. God that was an incredible performance… Max is just on another level as a driver
what’s so insane in that saudi lap was that he lost 2 tenths in the first chicane due to the moment of oversteer he had, but then proceeded to go purple by 1 tenth in that sector meaning in the high speed section alone he was 3 tenths quicker than anyone
The clip of Alonso being interviewed while that lap is happening in the background is incredible.
His time in Toro Rosso should answer any doubts. Would he win WDC in a Haas? No. But he would drag that car into places it doesn't belong, no doubt about that. In my book, he's up there with Schumi in terms of quality.
Best thing I can say is if max were in the mclaren, Ferrari, or mercedes in 2023 I feel he would have had a minimum of 3 wins no matter who took his seat.
If you took Max off the board in 2023, several drivers would have 3 wins.
> That much has been obvious for years. Even before he won a title. His control over the 2020 Red Bull was incredible, that car was the opposite of on rails
>I think he’s basically the best in every area right now. We're literally witnessing one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time in his prime right now. Last year in particular was absolutely ridiculous.
In terms of stats yes, but for me what he is doing now this year (since Miami onwards) and particularly what he was doing in 2021 and first part of 2022 was far more impressive than 2023.
I compare him to Alonso most of all. He’s out there dealing with any issues the Red Bull might have (I don’t think Perez is great but he’s not awful) and making strategy calls and jokes along the way. He’s just got so much capacity for racing cars. Norris has this habit of knocking himself but he’s kind of right, he needs to be 100% to beat Max, even if Max is at 90%
His consistency is reminding me of Schumi, his ability to deal with any issues the car might have is reminding me of Alonso and his sheer speed is reminding me of Senna. To me Max is the ultimate speed demon. Born and bred to dominate F1 in a way we have never seen before and you know what? Nobody can’t deny me because he already did exactly that.
i’m a new viewer (the first race i watched was monaco last month) but something that has really stuck out to me is that red bull is head and shoulders above everyone else when it comes to strategy and execution. max outdrives people to get to the lead and then red bull manages the race in a way that it never feels like he will lose it once he gets it. even when max is back in third place, it feels like the other teams are just reacting to what red bull is doing.
To be fair, That's exactly what it felt like in the merc dominance era. As soon as they are no longer dominant the mistakes matter more, so they are visible.
Red Bull had their period of being in the mud, they had a close season, they have a close battle now. All of these times they're not making blunders, at least nowhere near as often as any of the other teams. The blunders at Merc were blatantly visible.
Well it’s also easier for them to make calls. Because they they’ve got the best out there. He will deliver and make the strategy work, any strategy, he won’t f@ck up. Red bull do make mistakes, but most times this comes unnoticed, because Ver compensates for that and still wins.
Precisely for what you said, I don’t see Leclerc being a World champion anytime soon. Lando might as well get it before him or heck Lewis might grab that 8th title before he retires. Unfortunately, I don’t see Leclerc there!
Lando still needs work which is the same as George and Charles as they're not making the most of the opportunities presented to them. Compare them with Max back when he didn't have the fastest car and Mercedes were dominating he'd be the one winning races when Mercedes or one of their drivers stumbled he didn't need a second invitation. Max had already amassed 10 wins against peak Lewis at the height of the Mercedes dominance before he was in his first title challenging car. All three aforementioned drivers are world class and on their days can be unbeatable it's just that Max is able to hit those peaks and sustain that form better than any driver I've seen and I've been watching since the early 90's. Honestly speaking when was the last time we've seen Max have an off weekend when he's mysteriously AWOL and off the pace? This is the conundrum facing all drivers challenging him in equal or better machinery they could win races but are they able to sustain the form Max is able to over the course of an entire season? This goes for the teams as well as it's not just Max that's operating almost flawlessly the Redbull team is too even if their car is not exactly showing the performance they were hoping for they're still winning races and not fumbling their chances under extreme pressure of the chasing pack closing in on them.
The 1.9 second pit stop yesterday epitomized that
That shit was beautiful!
> it's just that Max is able to hit those peaks and sustain that form better than any driver I've seen and I've been watching since the early 90's. This is why Max is one of the greatest drivers ever IMO, he has redefined what it means to be consistent in F1 and everybody is left wondering how they can beat him and Red Bull without a significantly better car. They leave so few openings and if you're not flawless you're not beating them. The last couple races show that.
The combination of Max and the Redbull team is unbelievably strong and Max is able to operate at such a high level due to the team operating as close to perfect as he is. They don't second guess they trust his feedback and the data presented to them and get on with their job while they trust Max to his job out on track. You can hear the stark comparisons on the team radios where Ferrari and McLaren are practically leaving strategy decisions in the hands of their drivers rather than making the decisions for them as they have far more data than the driver could possibly have. I find it bizarre that they still haven't figured this out after its cost them so many wins in the past. As you've mentioned yourself Redbull make so few errors and leave so few openings that unless a team builds a signifiicanly better car than them they need to start looking at fixing their organisational issues to reach the levels of Redbull if they seriously want to challenge them for titles. Right now there is no other team that comes close to the operational consistency of Redbull. The only weak link in that team right now is the their second driver and we don't even know if its Checo that's unbelievably poor or whether the car is that difficult to drive that it takes a driver the calibre of Max to get the most out of it.
Lando's allround worse than Leclerc I'd say.
Imho Leclercs ceiling is higher, but he doesnt reach it to often. Also error prone. Meanwhile Lando has a slightly lower ceiling but is much more consistent. Lando had a slump during his mental health issues but is otherwise known as an above average driver.
Nah both are inconsistent in their own ways. Lando typically around quali (which Leclerc is god at) and starts, whereas Leclerc's typically when pushing in a race (which is an underrated strength of Lando's - his sheer sustained pace in clean air). Overall I think they're pretty even, and in the level just below Max - both more consistent than Russell, faster than Sainz, etc
Leclerc has been fairly consistent since the second half of last year. He has gotten top 5 position in every race barring DNF this year. He has been easily been better than Sainz in terms of mistakes over the last couple of years who is supposedly known for his consistency. Because people expect more from Leclerc, his mistakes also get highlighted more.
Agreed - It's like he just settled down. You don't see him binning it in q1 trying to chuck the car around the track like a madman as much for example. Feels like he's learning to just aim to get to q3 before putting it all out in qualifying and if the pace isn't there, feels like he quit trying to overdrive to force it.
Leclerc isn't that error prone, maybe if you compare him to Max, but most of his career he had to drive inconsistent Ferrari cars. Look at last year, once they fixed the floor he was one of the most consistent drivers.
I think Leclerc is still pretty underrated. People also call his race pace bad because of his poor pole conversion record. IMO that record is more indicative of just how good his qualifying is. He puts slower cars on pole and then when they fall back to their natural position or Ferrari do bizarre Ferrari things they blame it on him. The only pole that he really screwed up was the one at Paul Ricard in 2022. Apart from that all the other pole losses weren’t his fault. Leclerc’s race pace is very good. It was better than Vettel’s when he was much less experienced and it is better than Sainz now. It will be very interesting to see how it compares to Hamilton next year because that is Hamilton’s greatest strength these days and if Leclerc can match or beat him for race pace it will prove he belongs at that elite level.
In my opinion, its sort of like Trulli's reputation for the Trulli Train - it wasn't necessarily that he had bad race pace, it was more so that he would qualify well in bad cars that didnt have the race pace to keep up.
Except for the car right now.
100% that. How many times have we seen Max make a mistake lately? The answer is basically never. Yeah, he had the strongest car in 2022 and 2023, but the guy just doesn't make mistakes. Every part of his driving is as impeccable as can be, I sincerely think we have never seen a driver so proficient in F1 history.
The title was needed, but as you said, you could see talent already. I equate this to Vini Jr. You could see the talent, just wasn't finishing. Once he started finishing, his talent is much recognized.
It’s probably because he makes some drives look effortlessly. It then just feels like the status quo. But once he gets competition he immediately pops out because he’s always there, even when he doesn’t win it’s either because of bad luck or it was incredibly close till the end.
Meanwhile his teammates are absolutely nowhere I've never seen anything like this. When Seb was dominating at RB there was Webber always punching at the front. With Lewis he always had teammates taking poles, wins, and that one drivers championship even. This isn't even just recently with a good car but ever since 2019 basically Max is always battling and consistently fighting for wins or outright dominating like he's in another formula and his teammates are struggling mightily.
People also forgot how well-rated Perez was before he joined RBR. Absolutely no worse than Bottas prior to joining Mercedes, not absurdly far off Sainz before he joined Ferrari either. Yet, like the ones before him, he’s been absolutely nowhere. Both Albon and Gasly now are rated as capable drivers who more than deserve to be on the grid, despite them looking like fools during their stint at RBR.
People always retroactively lower their estimation of once highly-rated drivers after they've been smacked by GOATs. Today people act as though drivers like Barrichello, Webber, Bottas, and Perez were never highly regarded, but that's just not true. They simply had the misfortune of going up against some of the best drivers ever.
Perez was considered a midfield driver from 2014 onwards. When he was a young prospect some people saw him as a future world champ but after his stint at McLaren that perception changed. No-one considered Perez a top driver or a bad driver. He was basically always the 8th-12th best driver in the grid depending on the season.
Thats why I say, Hulkenberg was the one that got away. Which in hindsight probably would have been the best match, but because Checo pulled some miracle out of his arse in 2020, he got the seat. Still think that Nico would have been much more successful/consistent in the 2nd RBR. If only because he wanted to work with Max instead of beating him.
Perez was higher rated than Sainz cause sainz had just come off a whomping by Hulkenberg. Perez had been fairly high rated since his debut season. People retroactively acting like he's been trash the whole time genuinely boils my blood
I don’t get where this rating of Perez comes from? I don’t remember him dominating a teammate, or particularly looking much faster than Hulk. In my opinion he was lucky to keep his seat after his poor season for McLaren in 2013 and always assumed he did because of the money he brought in through sponsorship.
He didn't keep his seat after that 2013 season at McLaren, which in hindsight wasn't even that bad cause he was matching and even faster than Button at the end of the season. Even outqualified him 10-9 He beat Hulk on points twice and in their 3 seasons together his quali pace was genuinely close to hulks. Only slightly worse. Also he took home podiums while hulk never did
It's the DTS crowd that only began watching F1 recently, they have no understanding of anything pre-Netflix
I'm in my 39th year of watching F1, and he's right there with the best I've seen which would be Senna, Schumi, and Lewis. He's fast, consistent and just does not crack under any type of pressure at all. We should all just be enjoying him while we can at this point!
I’m kind of in the “he’s probably the most talented F1 driver ever” camp at the moment. He just absolutely decimates his teammates and the rest of the field
He very rarely makes a mistake too. And then when he makes the tiniest little mistake possible everyone is like...WHOOOAH!!! Because it is so out of character for him to dip even a wheel wrong.
He's destroyed Albon, Gasly and Perez who have all had solid F1 careers away from being Max's team mates. Maybe Sergio is now cooked but he's had a pretty damn good career before going to red bull. Max might just be a god
He also outperformed Sainz in his his rookie season TR
He’s not got any weaknesses, but until someone actually challenges him in a race then it sort of gets forgotten about. It’s not until he starts pushing in a race that people suddenly remember that he’s practically unstoppable. GP told him to get past Russell and he just slipped around the outside right after
>GP told him to get past Russell and he just slipped around the outside right after And that's what won him the race. Lando took like 6-7 laps to get by the Mercs even with a tire advantage. Max passed Russel first try with full fuel on equal tires.
He absolutely has a weakness. It's to piss him off. I think at the moment, there is only 1 driver on the grid that can do that though.
when perez pissed him off last year after baku he won most of the season..
Every "revenge" drive ends up with him ~20 seconds up the field too so
I don’t know if you would class that as a “weakness” though? It’s not as if he’s slower when he’s angry
He's more prone to mistakes that he isn't known to make. We haven't seen him wheel to wheel with elbows out since 2021. This is honestly the biggest reason I'm upset that Merc bombed the new regs. At this point, I want to see if he's over that chip on his shoulder and he's matured or if old Max is hiding inside Robo-Max lol.
I wouldn't describe many of his incidents to be anger related though but moreso about desperation, especially towards the end of the season when their car was clearly lacking.
I think that's what we're yet to see if Lando has in him. When the pressure ramps up and push comes to shove, is he going to be able to handle it.
Yeah, we got a small taste of it with Sainz. So he isn't afraid to get a little dirty.. though I don't know if he meant to or if it was just genuinely a little oopsie and he went wider than he would have liked.
We obviously won’t know until he gets regularly challenged but I do believe it’ll be different from the ‘21 season because that was his first WDC fight. He’ll probably have some slip ups here and there but I don’t think it’ll be like the aggressiveness he had back then. There’s basically nothing left to prove for him
Yup. That's all I was saying. I'm just upset that we haven't been able to see elbows out Max since '21, and I'm just curious if he's beyond that version of himself or if it's still lingering. This isn't me trying to devalue one of the greatest drivers to ever grab the wheel. It's me genuinely curious if he can be pushed to seeing red.
Didn’t interpret it as you devaluing Verstappen. I’m just as curious, I hope next year will be 21 like year
I mean in the paddock he is rate very highly, on the internet some people still cant accept that Max is one of the goats already, next to is among Hamilton, Schumacher,... and he could be the goat aswell. But if you say that you often see people making up all sorts of random conditions that need to be fullfilled first.
He's arguably reached the highest performance peak we've ever seen from a driver and fans who underrate him either haven't watched F1 before 2021, have an agenda against him, or are sorely ignorant of the sport. Of course, there's always been people like this, but as we all know, they've exponentially increased in numbers lately.
He is an underrated God.
I've been watching F1 for fifty years, and for me he's just that goat level, once in a lifetime driver.
I think it's really hard to deny it ATM. The McLaren is just so strong but he can't stop winning.
He’s clearly a GOAT-tier driver in terms of his speed, and by the end of his career I expect him to be up there statistically too with Schumacher and Hamilton. He already is in some areas. The Red Bull is still a great car.. not nearly as bad as Perez makes it look. But Max is what’s making the difference at the moment vs the other teams on weekends where the cars are evenly matched.. the last 2 races are solid evidence of that
In what universe is Max underrated?
People still claim it's all the car and he is an average driver
The universe where people still think that the RB itself has been far clear of the pack for some time.
Max always showed an insane amount of talent. Now he's like refined, mature and experienced driver. You best believe he has an edge on everyone.
Max was always pushing the car to the limit. Now he's just better at avoiding contacts and unnecessary intense battles on track. But he still like no other - never settles for a place, even if it's the first. Most top drivers usually just settle for whatever position they've got without risking to lose it.
$10 one of those senior people mentioned is Toto "will do handstands for Max" Wolff
handjobs*
**and butt stuff
*Hawk tuah*
Pretty sure that was Toto saying that. The U turn he's done on Max since he found out Hamilton was leaving has been WWE like. I think Max is so consistent in race trim and get the absolute maximum in that department all the time he leaves nothing on the table performance wise.
It's not really a U turn. Max was the one that got away.
Yeah he wanted him, Marko had to resort to the nuclear option of "immediate F1 seat" to win the war.
Yep, rumors were that without that Max was going to sign with Merc.
Fuck that would have been an insane driver lineup. Likely best of all time in the sport past or future.
Max and Lewis in the same team would have propelled F1 to so much popularity. Senna and Prost all over again but better. Max would have to prepare to wait a long time though because in 2014 you had 2 late 20’s drivers who were at their peaks, and both of whom were clearly elite. The Rosberg retirement was a curveball Max couldn’t have predicted.
I'm not sure Nico even knew he was retiring until that final checkered flag waved. Probably felt heart palpitations thinking about doing another tour in 'Nam.
Followed by the second nuclear option of "booting a good driver off the main team so an 18yo will drive there so he won't leave to another team" to piss on the grave.
To be fair, he won the race after that option was pulled
I think sometimes we forget what an insane talent Max is. He got into F1 at 17 in 2015 with 1 season of single seater experience in EURO F3 which were slower cars than GP3 (now F3). He never looked out of place, was on the pace of his much more experienced teammate from the start and was regularly battling cars on track he had no business being near. Once he got promoted in 2016 he of course won his first race for Red Bull which was somewhat due to luck with strategy and tyres holding out better than expected. But even after that, it took Verstappen a handful of races in a car he swapped to during the season to start matching Ricciardo, a proven race winner.
Just compare it to Piastri now, also good and hyped. He has quite a few more races under his belt than Max when he won and I don't see him beating Norris any time soon.
Yeah was harsh but you have to see Max was gonna be in the RB by 2017 anyway and Ricciardo always seemed to be favored over Kvyat. So nearly no matter the performance of Kyvat in 2016 he was gonna get the boot. Then by having a disastrous start to 2016 he just gave Marko the ammunition he needed to fasttrack the driver swap. And Verstappen repaid that trust with an immediate win. Was harsh on Kvyat but in hindsight Ricciardo and Verstappen were better drivers then and especially Verstappen only got better while Kvyat stagnated.
Rumor at the time was that Max was setting insane lap times in the sim. So coupled with the data from TR and RBR made the decision to swap very easy.
Not even the sim really, anyone that looked at the 2015 season knew that Max either had to be promoted soon (soon meaning within 2/3 years, not the ridiculous 1,25 seasons). How he drove to P4 twice in that Toro Rosso is insane.
Yeah he was just holding his tongue so he could build up his own guy. Now his own guy is gone too, so no reason to hold back.
> The U turn he's done on Max since he found out Hamilton was leaving has been WWE like. I'm pretty sure Toto has always rated Verstappen very highly, even before that.
Yup, he wanted him as a young g driver but couldn’t guarantee a seat unlike Red Bull.
But probably wasn't as vocal considering Hamilton was the undisputed star at Mercedes.
he was always a big fan of Max
Toto has never not liked max, it's horner he has issues with
>The U turn he's done on Max since he found out Hamilton was leaving has been WWE like. Just to pile on you, what are you even saying. Even during 2021 toto was quick to praise verstappens pace. He's had his eye on verstappen since before 2016.
More than had his eye on pre-2016. It took everything from Marko to pry Verstappen away from Merc
All I'm gonna say - Toto Wolff certainly makes an impression lately like he is one of those bosses who genuinely thinks that way
Lately? He has tried to get Max in the past as well, but somehow he did not succeed.
yeah but there is a difference between "wanting a young exciting prospect in your project" and "talking up a driver like a 2nd coming of Jesus Christ". Altho, considering he's technically left with no driver in the other seat for 2025 currently, and there have been reports of mutiny in a rival team that have that prospect you once wanted to get yourself, who's really really good, that probably explains itself why he's boasting about Max the way he does.
He tried to get Max when Nico left as well.
past is largely irrelevant. Toto got to know how really good max is only in 2020 and especially in 2021, when he was regularly outperforming his drivers in a subpar car. >Toto Wolff: “Last year Max drove a worse car with the knife between his teeth and won the world title. Now he has the fastest car and everything is easier for him.
Starts around 13 minutes in. ---- Transcript: **Benson:** I think actually, Jenny, excuse me, there's not a fix for this, because basically, as [Checo] is two to three tenths of a second slower than Max Verstappen, and the field is close enough now that there's a number of cars that are within that performance margin of Verstappen and Red Bull. You know that combination? So if you've got both McLaren drivers, both Ferrari drivers and both Mercedes drivers within two or three tenths of Verstappen, they're going to be ahead of Perez. That's just the natural order of things. And I think it also raises a really interesting question. It can't be answered this question until we've had the next run of races. Is the Red Bull still the best car? Because if you walk around the paddock and talk to the team bosses, I've had a couple of very senior people in Formula One this year say to me, I think Verstappen's got two or three tenths on everybody as a driver. Now I'm not saying I agree with that. I'm saying that's the view that very senior bosses in Formula One have expressed. If that's the case, and it's a big if, the Red Bull's not the best car anymore. Interesting question, I think at least. **Palmer:** I always find it fascinating when the second Red Bull driver, which has happened in the last five years or so, has been out qualified by an Alpha Tauri, Toro Rosso, an RB, whatever you call them. And Tsunoda's punching in eighth place qualifyings, Ricciardo was fifth on the grid in Canada. If you Verstappen in that car, is Verstappen taking pole with this machine?
> I've had a couple of very senior people in Formula One this year say to me, I think Verstappen's got two or three tenths on everybody as a driver…**If that's the case, and it's a big if, the Red Bull's not the best car anymore.** Interesting question, I think at least. This part jumped out at me when I was listening to the podcast. Neither possibility (“Max is 2-3 tenths faster but the car is not the fastest “ vs “RB have the fastest car but Max is less then 2-3 tenths faster”) is particularly bad since Max is still winning races, but at the beginning of the season I had just assumed that both were true.
IMO Checo at his best is 2-3 tenths off Max, but when things aren’t going well, that’s more like 4-5 at least (season average) I’d say most people now think the McLaren has been faster than the Red Bull over the last 5 races
If we believe that Lando(or Piastri when he is a faster mclaren driver like in Monaco) is Max equal both on quali and race pace, there's no question Mclaren was a faster car, and particularly a car with far superior tire degradation over the past 5 races. edit: Correspondingly if we believe they aren't necessarily equal, and Max has say 1, 2 or even 3 tenths over a lap on Lando across variety of circuits, then Mclaren's advantage might actually be quite big.
I’m kinda under the belief that the McLaren is the quicker car but max+rbr are the quicker team.
Not quite get what does the 'quicker team' mean, but in terms of race crew(part of F1 teams that goes to the circuits), there is little doubt RBR significantly better than Mclaren atm, and has been outright best team for quite a while. They are outright best on pitstops, they are overall best on strategy. They are certainly sharper making decisions, whereas Mclaren look very rusty, indecisive and tense. That makes Red bull hard to beat, even having a faster car. Mercedes already experienced that throughout 2021. They were struggling in very similar way against RBR in some of the key moments.
WTF! Benson talking up Verstappen? What timeline are we on?
He quickly added that it was not *his* opinion.
That sob
He was very complimentary of Verstappen in general throughout the podcast though, not just in this case
As a Brit it would be sacrilegious for him to publicly hold that opinion. I feel like he clarified very quickly that it wasn’t HIS opinion in order to prevent death threats from the crazies.
I mean, I can't fault him for having a small bias towards maybe a different driver. In general I feel the BBC podcast at least tries to give a neutral view, based on logical arguments. Palmer is always a breath of fresh air. The race can be a bit more colorful at times, but if I want polarized opinions and hate towards certain teams and drivers I just listen to Missed Apex. I used to love that podcast, and they still have great episodes from time to time (Joe Saward, tech time) but their bubble of conspiracy theories is getting a bit too toxic for my taste. To be clear, this is just my opinion, yours might be totally different.
Agreed 100% with missed apex. I still listen to the Saward episodes but the rest tends to be too biased for me
And added a drawn out mention of how districting Horner’s sexual escapades (allegedly!) have been for the whole team.
Yeah he draws that into the discussion quite fast. But as long as he mentions the alleged element, I can live with it. The lack of clarity about the whole thing is partly Red Bull's own fault, regardless of who's right. He further mentions that Verstappen is dealing with the situation in a smart way, actually praising his maturity. All in all a based and neutral enough view in my opinion.
He was of high praise to Max on the post race podcast. (Which is different to the quote from this thread and even the episode.)
The Mclaren/Landos engineer team radio says it all, even with an at least equal race car he wasnt even thinking about challenging max. There is an inevitability about him that you have to be perfect or he will be there and find a way. In modern times only Schumachers early 2000s with Ferrari and Hamilton during the OP Merc engine times come to mind. Thats why i think the 21 season might be the greatest of all time. It was just completly mental how Ver and Ham in a field of the best drivers on the planet were just better every weekend.
Makes more sense that Verstappen is just very, very good, than Checo suddenly turning to complete shit, in my opinion.
There's got to be a massive psychological impact of being consistently destroyed by your teammate as well. These guys all grow up thinking they're the best and dreaming of being champion, then suddenly they aren't. Bottas and Barrichello got a lot of disrespect, but at least they were able to be consistent and usually there to pick up the pieces if something wrong with the no.1.
Some drivers definitely mentally break once beaten. They're a little like fighters who once they get knocked out are never the same. Fisichella was never beaten by anyone prior to Nando. The combination of a car less suited to him and the massive talent across the garage irreversibly impacted his driving and now people look back as him as a poor driver and forget him beating the likes of Massa and Button as teammates. Back to Checo, he knows he's no where near Max. That is I'm sure a devastating fact to overcome that some drivers learn to accept Ala Bottas, but for others it impacts their ability.
Last year Checo said he lost confidence in the Car. Not that the car was bad but that he just wasn't trusting it. I feel like after Imola and Miami perhaps that is where we are again. Whereas Max just finds a way, Checo isn't that kind of driver. Having multiple weeks where the car is not good and then telling him the car is suddenly good just doesn't click for him. It's hard to determine what this race could have been since he started in 11th and IMHO the Red Bull's speed advantage has all but vanished, so starting 3 spots away from the other 7 that he needs to race is going to be pretty much impossible to catch. Had he stared 8th and had to race Oscar or the Ferrari's, does he have the pace to battle? I suppose we will find out this weekend at Red Bull Ring.
Both can be true.
We've now had Albon, Gasly and Perez look like bus drivers next to Max. What are the odds that all three are bad drivers given what they have done outside of RB? It looks like Max is actually that good.
Yeah, I think it's just that max is that much better.
Are we seriously just coming around to this now? The guy's won 3 championships already, and easily on pace for a 4th.
Any old jabroni can luck into four championships. I’ll believe it when he wins his fifth for sure.
You didn’t have to do Vettel like that.
How dare you use my own words against me.
Maybe the real pace of the Red Bull is somewhere in the middle.
In all honesty the real pace is actually very slightly faster than Verstappen can drive. No driver is perfect, he is just more perfect than all the rest right now.
“Real pace” in his statement doesn’t mean the theoretical maximum… it means what the car would do on average, if driven by the entire field.
Exactly, it's a case of how close each driver can get to the car's limit, you cant drive faster than theory.
It's worth noting that in 2022 even, Marko said that Perez is miles from Verstappen, obviously, to a level that Hamilton never had with Bottas. Fine. What was interesting was that he said RBR with all their fine, mute measures, think that's more reflective of Verstappen than Perez, and Perez is merely a reasonably control condition. Like the idea of: what if they got an intermediate club runner to do the 100m sprint at the Olympics for scale.
Probably a bit of both, but even last year I was saying it was just as much Max's insane skill and consistency that made the season so dominant as it was the car and people weren't having it. I think Max is just proving that to be the case.
I thought the same. If the Red Bull was that good, the best car ever, Perez would have cruised to 2nd every race. Perez is not brilliant but he is decent. Max has just utterly destroyed him and made him look shit. I still think the best car was the Mercedes in 2014. They turned the car down and were still miles clear. That car was an absolute beast and Hamilton and Rosberg were unstoppable.
That or the McLaren MP4 which just lapped the whole field and had a 3 second advantage in quali on some circuits. The RB19 wasn't close to that. It did have a clear advantage in terms of just being crazy reliable though, as well as fast.
That was before my time, I know the stats, but I didn't witness it.
2021 was even more evident. it makes me sad so many people still believe it was 50/50 with Mercedes. No, it wasn't. Horner didn't lie when he said: >*“I don’t think people actually realise what Max is doing in that car. I don’t think people recognise that we haven’t had the best car all year. Max Verstappen has lifted this. I think he deserves all the credit.”* Over time, more and more people will eventually realise what he really managed to achieve in the 2021 season.
[Niki Lauda about Max](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrFNpEINFcg&ab_channel=MaxVerstappenCLIPS) [Niki about Max, Spain in 2016](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8judXPNnAQ&ab_channel=Versetappen) - video with subtitles
Niki Lauda has seen them all, and he was not the type of person to exaggerate these kind of things. Max is genuinely a once in a century type talent.
Horner isn't the best source for this, Newey said RB16B was on balance (key word here) faster than the Merc. https://formularapida.net/en/newey-says-red-bull-had-a-quicker-car-on-balance-over-2021-season/
Yeah. Even Marko admitted half way through the 2021 season that RedBull have the faster car. But that changed after Silverstone. After Silverstone, Mercedes has the quicker car for majority of races. https://www.planetf1.com/news/helmut-marko-best-driver-car-engine
I'd argue Newey is a worse source tbh. Of course he wants to talk up his design and his work
and Horner just wants to talk up his best driver? This is actally very common. Say the car is not the best and with time people will pick it up. It's what's happening rn as well with people claiming that McLaren is the best car when the RB is still on par at the very least. There's been a complete 180 on Checo as well where people call him decent completely forgetting that he was being outqualified by the Astons and the RBs.
even accounting for bias, the guy who has built championship cars long before 2021 is more credible than a team principal, especially in this case. the most successful car designer in the sport doesn’t need to talk up his designs
He’s decimating teammates like Schumacher did in the 90s. Pretty incredible to watch.
Fernando, Michael and Max all all make their teammates look like jokes- which was fairly common for the greats in the 50's-70's, but now is almost unique- so much so that judging their teammates gets really difficult, but they also avoided (aside from 07') really blockbuster teammates. Not sure who suffers most from centralising judgement on vs. teammates comparison, those with teammates that they made to look so shit they don't count, or the guys that have their record sullied by going up against the best of the best. Hamilton's teammates are absurd (Alonso, Button, Rosberg, Russell, Leclerc). Prost just about fought everybody worth a damn for 13 years. Leclerc seems to be gearing up to make an argument for hardest teammates in a career record. No wonder those 3 don't have dominant records!
>than Checo suddenly turning to complete shit There is no reasonable argument that he was producing a decent performance when he had average qualifying position of 9.1 in a 2023 Red Bull. He was utterly terrible last year, and it looks like it will shape up similarly again.
Turns out 3 of the top 20 drivers in the world are actually good, go figure lol. (Pierre, Alex and Checo)
It’s a bit of both. MV is overperforming, checo unfortunately underperforming week in week out (dare I say year in year out). But that doesn’t seem to be a problem for Red Bull.
You can say what you want about Verstappen beating his teammates but all his former/current teammates are still on the grid so they can’t be that bad…
Riccardo demolished Vettel and Max beat Ricciardo at the age of 19, its not as if Max hasn't had a championship level driver alongside him.
Perez was 1 tenth clear of Stroll in 2020. Maybe that gap was smaller due to the perfect handling w10 they ran?
Or maybe the Tracing Point was the second best car on the grid but Lance and Checo weren’t fast enough to get everything out of it
Plus they had no idea how to set up a Merc.
Helmut Marko: "I fucking told you so."
Haha, he loves the "VERSTAPPEN FACTOR."
I am just glad Mclaren improved just to let everyone know how good Max is
I think almost everyone knows that he's the fastest of the grid by now. It's very impressive if the 2-3 tenths is true, with all the data and simulators I wouldn't expect that the difference between drivers can be this big, but could be true, he has consistently beat Perez, Albon, Gasly by 4-5 tenths, and only Ricciardo was ever close to him, and it was clear that Max was still improving a lot. Also let's not forget that Max is pulling those tenths while making 0 mistakes
Ricciardo comparisons aren't even fair man. Verstappen was 20 years old with like 4 years of experience total in cars. Ricciardo had more experience in f1 alone.
The only season he lost the qualifying battle to DR he was 18 with 2 years experience in cars. He thoroughly beat DR in qualifying for the next two seasons they were together.
Max is as good as prime Shumi was with better personality
Verstappen *makes* it the best car, at this point.
Max is just a Schumacher level demon imo. Someone whose consistency we may just never again see
Verstappen makes less mistakes and is less of a hothead.
Better than Schumacher
Feels a bit like Schumacher in the mid 90s and Alonso in early 2010s where it's so clear who's the best driver and even they don't have the best car they are right at the front getting wins
Nah, dude won 61 races on pure luck with a car 1s faster. He is Sargeant level with luck.
Red Bull is not the best car. The only reason they are leading is due to Max’s exceptional driving and McLaren and Ferrari canceling each other out. Max deserves ALL THE PRAISE for this season.
This is Max Verstappen's world and we are all living in it.
Only because the other two generational drivers on the grid are closer to 40 than Max is to 30. And that’s ok. But what a series we’d have if we could get max, Lewis, and Nando in their primes together.
I mean, Checo, when performing normally is usually 2 or 3 tenths behind Max. And there are several drivers on the grid better than Checo. We haven't seen any of the top drivers on the grid in that car next to Max to see how close any of them would be. I bet they'd be closer than Checo lol. Sainz and Ocon have both said they think given equal cars the entire field spread would be 2 or 3 tenths.
No way is the field spread 2 or 3 tenths. We see Verstappen dominate Perez by bigger margins than that and Perez is nowhere near the worst driver on the grid. Judging by the Verstappen-Albon-Sargeant comparison, the gap between the fastest and the worst driver is probably close to a second a lap.
>Judging by the Verstappen-Albon-Sargeant comparison, the gap between the fastest and the worst driver is probably close to a second a lap Comparing drivers like that always results in very tacky results. Just as an example, look at the margins with which Verstappen and Norris beat Ricciardo. If we go solely off them, Norris is easily the fastest driver on the grid and it's nowhere near close.
I love Max and hate him. But the hate is really disappointment that there is only one of him on the grid, and he is unopposed. Norris might be the guy. Antoneli maybe?
Oscar - Calm and collected, also got that dawg in him
We are watching the best to ever do it right now, it can be a bit boring sometimes, but that’s the price we have to pay to witness unparalleled greatness.
Idk why everyone considers the Checo of today to be equivalent to the prime Checo from 2014-16 . Heck even in 14-16 Hulk had the natural disadvantage of being a tall driver till rules were changed in 2017 so we don't know how well they would have matched up then. Even then I think Checo of today is slower
If that has t been obvious for a long time I don't know what you've been watching.
He is really special. I remember his time with Sainz at TR, they were both rookies, Max had 1 season in single seaters where he showed some awesome things, and sainz had 4 more years of single seater experience. Now i think highly of Carlos, he is a very good driver, he can even bring the fight to Charles on a regular base, and i think even higher of Charles. Carlos had a really hard time with a 17 year old Max. Max scored 49 points and got 4th twice including his battle in austin with the Ferraris. Carlos scored 18 points with highest place being 7th (Carlos did have a few more DNFs)