“Why not keep going when there are still so many people to be disappointed with?” This sentence from writer Emil Cioran, Max Verstappen, crowned F1 world champion on Sunday 12 December after an incredible race, could make it his own. Since his arrival in the paddock, the Dutchman irritates as much as he fascinates. Detractors, he will always have them. And not only does he not care, but he also feeds on the antipathy that he can sometimes arouse. “Some pilots are like that. When they’re a little pissed off, they get better.”. So says Max Verstappen. So is Max Verstappen.
He is one of those people apart, on whom all forms of criticism slip. “Only my father’s opinion matters”, asserts Max. “The rest is just wind”. The father, Jos, former Formula 1 driver (between 1994 and 2003), was already not known for his sense of diplomacy in the paddock. The son pushed arrogance into the tachometer. From his father, therefore, and from his mother, herself a karting champion, Verstappen inherited this sometimes haughty and cold side of the Batavians who irritate our Latin hair. But above all, he inherited a famous steering wheel.
It’s quite simple, Max Verstappen won almost everything it was possible to win in the karting categories. Like some of the greatest before him (Senna, Schumacher, Hamilton), it was through this route that he made himself known. First considered as a “son of”, like Damon Hill, Jacques Villeneuve or Nico Rosberg, Max proves that his place owes nothing to the piston. The pistons, he rather harasses them then in Formula 3 where one season is enough for him to reveal himself and open to him the pinnacle of the sacrosanct F1. Spotted and brooded by Red Bull, who incubated him in the seat of its subsidiary Torro Rosso, he broke all records of precocity by becoming the youngest driver to take the start of a Grand Prix, in Melbourne in 2015. He has so 17 years and 166 days.
At the time, already, voices rose up. “I think Max is an insult. Does Red Bull realize he’s putting a kid in Formula 1? “ plague Jacques Villeneuve. The Australian Grand Prix, and those who follow, will take it upon themselves to prove the Canadian wrong. The talent is obvious, obvious. In almost every race, the Flying Dutchman sets a new benchmark (youngest driver to score points, youngest leader of a world championship, youngest winner of a Grand Prix …) But these performances, also dazzling be they, do not go without a few burrs. And rather not very discreet.
The list of incidents involving Max Verstappen is as large as his country is flat. Sometimes the Dutchman feels like a dog in a bowling game. From his fifth race, he sent Romain Grosjean into the background, whom he accused, with all the aplomb of his 17 years, “to have braked too late”. The wise Felipe Massa is the first to detect the poorly controlled ardor of the rookie and describes him as “dangerous”.
Sainz in Hungary, Räikkönen in Belgium, Rosberg in Mexico … They will all feel the fury of Verstappen. It was at this time that he inherited this nickname “Mad Max” which still sticks to the fireproof suit. It must be said that, like Mel Gibson in the eponymous film, the boy is a rebel. Silent and lonely.
“I’m sick of people telling me I have to change my approach to racing”, he replied thus to those who criticized his impetuosity. Even his ego. Because the man is not frankly modest. Call it complacency or self-confidence, whatever you like. But, to declare that with an equal car, he would drive two tenths per lap faster than Lewis Hamilton, you still need a certain notch. This aplomb is also reflected in his driving, sometimes to the limit, but here again Verstappen is defending himself. Like on the track, where he is certainly one of the toughest drivers to overtake. “Doubling down is one art, but resisting is another” he said.
However, despite all these provocations, the Red Bull driver knew how to add water to his wine to achieve, by far, his most successful season. Of course, it heated up on several occasions – you don’t turn a thoroughbred into a workhorse – and especially with Lewis Hamilton this season. The climax was reached at Monza when the Dutchman’s car crashed into the Briton’s Mercedes before literally taking off above it in what will undoubtedly remain the image of the year in F1.
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It got even hotter, to put it mildly, during the penultimate Grand Prix of the season in Saudi Arabia. “This guy is crazy” shouted on the radio Lewis Hamilton after the Red Bull driver cut a chicane and then made a “break test” resulting in the collision of the two cars …
But if he has flirted with red again, this time the Batavian has gone “to the Oranje”, as evidenced by the final passes of arms in Abu Dhabi. In this, he got closer to the two most famous mad dogs in the history of the sport, Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher. Like Verstappen, the Brazilian and the German had drawn the wrath of the paddock at their beginnings by not respecting the established order and by decreeing the “it goes or it breaks” as the only rule of conduct on the track. Like them, the new world champion does not accept the muzzle.
With age, his two oldest had learned to control their emotions to stack crowns, even though they are sometimes accompanied by a few thorns. Max Verstappen is now on this path. Even if, in a final bravado, he declares: “When I drive I always want to trust my c … In the end, that’s what makes great drivers, right?”