The Controversial Evolution of Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen, if he retired today at the age of just 27, would already be one of the greatest drivers the sport has ever seen. He is currently on his way to a fourth consecutive world championship, he has set and broken more records than I can remember, and as a driver whether you love him or hate him, he has been the benchmark for all of the drivers over the past few years. Even though this season isn't done yet and Lando is still mathematically within a chance of winning the title, to me there has been no doubt over who has been the best driver. I think 2024 has been probably Max's best season in Formula 1, and whilst he has had more dominant championships in the past, personally I have always valued championships that were won during competitive seasons more than dominant ones, because when car performance is close, that is when the best drivers make the biggest difference in terms of their ability to perform consistently under the highest levels of pressure. This season, which I consider to be Max's most complete title winning season so far, has come in his 10th year in Formula 1, and when comparing him to the other two legends of the era in Lewis and Fernando, I think that their best seasons also came around that time as well. Lewis' best season to me was in 2018 in his 12th year of Formula 1, particularly for the way in which he dominated Seb mentally and forced him into making mistakes, and Fernando's best season was in 2012, which was in his 11th season in Formula 1, for the way in which he was able to consistently pick up the points and turn an underperforming Ferrari into a title challenger. That period to me is the apex of these drivers' careers because at that point, they still had all of the raw talent and motivation that made them such exciting talents in the first place, but they also now had plenty of race and championship winning experience across multiple regulation changes. When Max made his F1 debut at just 17 years old, I think it's easy to forget just how controversial that was. Now his rookie season is a story in itself which I have already done a video on and which has actually recently surpassed 1 million views. Now firstly I'd like to say a massive thank you to everyone that's watched that video, and secondly if you do want an in-depth dive into 2015 specifically, then definitely go and check that video out in the link below. What surprised everyone about Max almost immediately is that he looked totally comfortable as a Formula 1 driver despite his age, and that was obvious in the fact that had it not been for reliability issues, he would have scored points in his first ever Formula 1 race and then did so anyway in his second race in Malaysia. One thing about Max that I'm not going to mention too much throughout this video because it kind of goes without saying is his immense raw talent and exceptional car control. Like with all great champions, those things are a given. In the time that Max has been in Formula 1, he's not necessarily got more talented or even faster so to speak because as we saw when he first got into the Red Bull at just 18 years old, he was immediately able to be a race winner. It's more so that over time he's learned to refine his speed and also improve his execution under pressure. Christian Horner speaking in 2023 summed it up very well saying, In his early years at Toro Rosso and Red Bull, what stood out is that he was able to find the limits of the car incredibly quickly. Countless people who have worked with him including Ricciardo himself have all described how they were very surprised by how hard he would push right from the start of FP1 instead of choosing to build up throughout the weekend. That's actually a trait that he has carried throughout his career, even now being one of the earliest to set a really fast lap time in FP1 and it showed that he had a huge amount of confidence and self-belief to be comfortable enough to push very hard, very fast. Having said that, although he was able to produce incredible peaks, he was also involved in a lot of controversy when it came to his driving. More than any other driver that I have seen, Max in wheel-to-wheel combat pushed the FIA and the rules to their absolute limit. Moving under braking, late direction changes and forcing drivers off the track all became big talking points and in fact, after battling with Ricciardo for the win at the 2016 Malaysian Grand Prix, he admitted that had it not been his teammate, he would have pushed Ricciardo off the track. And now, no one was questioning his talent, but fans and especially the other drivers who experienced it first hand, were critical of him and of the FIA for allowing him to race the way that he did. After major incidents, there was almost always a clarification of the rules by the FIA that was related in some way to Max's driving and there was a prevailing narrative that Max was essentially being protected by the FIA. This battle between Max, the FIA and his fellow drivers sent out loads of mixed messages because after his controversial battle with Raikkonen at Spa in 2016, although the FIA chose not to penalise Max, they did then feel the need to have a one-on-one talk with him about his driving, which again just sends loads of mixed messages about what's actually right and wrong. Horner described this interaction as, "...Charlie was keen to show him a video of Spa. It was a gentle warning. Like any 18-year-old, the criticism from the other drivers seems to be going in one ear and out the other. He really doesn't care. We are all here talking about it and it's that spirit that he's got that is bringing fans trackside." That last point however was actually the most everlasting. Max more than any other driver totally flipped the question of racing ethics and whether you want to call it confidence, arrogance or a mixture of both, he didn't care about anyone's opinion because as long as he wasn't getting penalised, then in his mind, he wasn't doing anything wrong. Now in truth, that was a totally justifiable mindset to have because it's the job of the other drivers to adapt to the rules but it's also what made him such a polarising driver. Whilst there were lots of fans who were critical of his driving, others absolutely loved it. He was entertaining, totally self-assured and all of those things along with his killer instinct garnered him a huge amount of fans all around the world to go along with his already infamous orange army of Dutch fans. This was still a period of growth however for Max because it was also around this time when he started to develop a reputation for crashing which earned him the nickname Crashstappen. Now in truth, it wasn't necessarily that he was crashing all the time and that he was some kind of reckless liability, it was just that the incidents that he was having all had massive consequences. Even though this era was dominated by Mercedes, with Ferrari also challenging for the title, the Red Bull were still capable of winning races on tracks like Monaco and Mexico where due to either the layout or the altitude, the deficit of the Renault Power unit was diminished. However, even though Max was scoring podiums and was already one of the best drivers on the grid, his overconfidence meant that he wasn't maximising the car at his disposal. In Monaco 2016 he crashed on a weekend where the car was capable of winning, in Hungary 2017 he crashed into his teammate Ricciardo, taking him out of the race, then in Baku 2018 he again collided with Ricciardo after what Daniel felt was a double move and he also crashed in Monaco again in 2018 with Ricciardo going on to win that race. This reputation for crashing really reached its peak at the start of the 2018 season with Max famously having 6 different crashes or spins in the first 6 races. The narrative at the time was that it was clear that Max was immensely fast and his potential was undoubtedly that of a world champion, but he just couldn't put it all together under pressure in key moments and on tracks that really mattered in the same way as Ricciardo could. I think the biggest manifestation of this was in his qualifying, when he won the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix on his Red Bull debut, becoming the youngest driver ever to win a race at just 18 years old. Given that he had 3 years to become the youngest pole sitter, I think people thought that it was almost a given that he would eventually score a pole position in that time and take that record away from Seb as well, but he didn't. There was a bit of a dichotomy in the fact that during their time as teammates, there is no doubt that Max was the faster and better qualifier beating Daniel in their quali head to head, but when it came to pole positions, it was always Ricciardo who delivered in crunch moments when the car was competitive, scoring 3 poles to 0. Having said that, although those mistakes are part of Max's legacy, as Niki Lauda once said, you learn more from your failures than you do from your successes, and for a man that went from karting to single-seaters and then to Formula 1 all within the space of less than 3 years, he needed to make those mistakes to become the driver he is today, or whether Max will ever admit this possibly in the future after he retires from Formula 1, the weekend of Monaco 2018, I think will go down as the inflection point of his career. This was the weekend in which after crashing in practice and subsequently not being able to participate in qualifying, he had to bear the criticism about his driving, all the while watching his teammates claim pole position and then also go on to win the race. Something changed in Max that weekend because from that race onwards, even though Ricciardo had some of the worst reliability you will ever see in the modern era, Ricciardo never beat Max again after winning in Monaco. From the start of 2018 to the end of 2019, Max became a completely different driver. Ricciardo leaving the team actually turned out to be one of the most significant moments in Max's career, because one of the reasons that Ricciardo left is because he already started to feel the team and specifically Horner and Marco gravitate towards Max. It was inevitable that Max was going to become the future at Red Bull because the power dynamic that him and his dad had created inside of the team along with his exceptional talent, basically meant that they had almost more power than Horner and Marco. None of that would have happened had Max not shown the immense potential that he did on the track and with Ricciardo gone for 2019, for the first time in his life, Max became the outright leader of the team. This change of dynamic empowered Max with even more confidence and he also refined his driving by learning to judge where the limit is a lot better, both in terms of his wheel-to-wheel combat and also in terms of execution in qualifying and the race. After Monaco 2018, not only did he go on to win the Austrian Grand Prix to kickstart his season, but he also went on a career-defining run. In the 21 race span between the 2018 Belgium Grand Prix and the 2019 Hungarian Grand Prix, he finished inside of the top 5 in every single race. Just think about that for a minute, 21 races which, at the time, was basically the length of an entire season and although he had imperious reliability, he managed to score 12 podiums and 3 wins in a car which, on average, was only the 3rd best on the grid. I have always said that 2019 was the season in which Max reached his absolute prime. From there he became, in my mind, a driver capable of winning the world championship and it was now just a case of giving him the car to match his talent. In 2019 he beat both of the Ferrari drivers despite driving a definitely inferior car and in 2020 he finished just 9 points behind Valtteri in one of the most dominant cars of all time. He started to find that balance of still pushing the rules and still being aggressive with the other drivers, but he was now able to tame his aggression a little bit more, knowing when to concede, which made him a more consistent and more complete driver overall. After winning the title in 2021, despite the controversial way in which the FIA let things play out, there is no denying that Max was a worthy world champion. You could see just by his celebrations that it lifted a huge amount of pressure and expectation off his shoulders and it allowed him to become even more self-assured because now he had a championship to back up his talent. Max has now reached the upper limit of his development curve, that is why over the past few years I wouldn't say necessarily that we have seen him get any better, it's more so that now his challenge is to maintain those sky high standards that he has set, both within himself and also making sure that the team is accountable for them as well. That's not to say that he has been flawless the entire time and still doesn't occasionally get things wrong. Max is very stubborn in wheel to wheel combat and if you look at the back half of 2021 and even at times this season when he has been put under pressure, he does sometimes have the tendency to lose his head and become a bit erratic, which is ironic given that the majority of the time he is easily one of the best racers on the grid. The fact is when you compare him to the other all time great drivers of the same calibre, none of them have ever had as many crashes or incidents with the other top drivers of their era. Raikkonen, Vettel, Leclerc, Ricciardo, Hamilton, Russell and now Norris. I am not saying that every single incident that he's ever had with these drivers has always been his fault, but I do think that it's naive to think that it's a coincidence that Max has had crashes with all of these drivers. And now none of this is to say that I think Max will or even should change the way that he drives. That aggression has got him to where he is today, it makes him the champion that he is today and I think for him he will always take that trade off because it's just a case of sometimes you're going to get the rough with the smooth. His driving is intrinsic to his personality which is that of a man who's unapologetic, unfiltered and totally authentic with who he is. It's one of the many reasons why Dutch fans in particular have always liked Max so much because he represents the people that support him. What I like about Max is that whether you like him or not, what you see is what you get. He says what he means and he means what he says. Horner and Marco in particular have tried to create an environment that totally supports him. And whilst sometimes I think that that's meant that there's not enough people there to hold him accountable and also to challenge him both in and out of the car because Horner and Marco have made it that way, the reason that they have done that is because they know, as long as they centre the team around Max and give him a competitive car which suits his style, it basically guarantees championships. When you look at the three great drivers of the current era that have all won championships in Fernando, Lewis and Max, I think people try so hard to put them all in a box and to try to relate them to one another, when in reality, they are all completely different. Longevity, driving style, motivation, character, they are all very different from one another and that's what makes their individual journeys as drivers special in their own way. Max's journey and the way he's developed into the driver that he is today has been a great example of someone getting the most out of their talent by embracing the person that they are from day one. His achievements are already historic and whilst he doesn't have the same drive and motivation to be in Formula 1 as long as Lewis and Fernando, it's scary to think where his legacy is going to be by the time that he finally decides to hang up his helmet. Well, there you have it. If you did enjoy this video and want to support the channel, then don't forget to subscribe, that would be massively appreciated and I'll see you in the next one.