The Dutch driver is dominant in a season where Red Bull could potentially win every race on the F1 calendar writes Peter Coster.
Max Verstappen is a racer. It’s not enough to win. Supermax wants it all. Unlike America’s toughest prisons, he takes no prisoners.
Not content with winning the Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday, he put it all at risk when he swept into the pits for a tyre change in the last laps. It ended a run of 224 consecutive laps in the lead.
He had already picked up eight points for winning the sprint race on Saturday and was assured of 25 points for Sunday’s Grand Prix.
But he wanted the single point still available for the fastest lap.
The Red Bull team didn’t want to risk losing the race with a hung wheel at a pit stop. Supermax lays it all on the line when other drivers might settle for less.
Embed from Getty ImagesAlready a double world champion, the Dutch wunderkind has won seven of this year’s nine races, the past five in succession.
The other two were won by teammate Sergio Perez but the Mexican driver’s other results have been far from consistent, which has led to public criticism from team principal Christian Horner and speculation that he could sacked at the end of the season.
This has led to comparisons with what happened to Daniel Ricciardo, who left Red Bull for Renault, now Alpine, before signing on for McLaren.
The pressure on Perez to perform has led to increasing speculation that Ricciardo, who signed as reserve driver for Red Bull this year, will replace Perez next year.
The Mexican has signed on for 2024, although that doesn’t count for much in a sport where contacts are torn up as quickly as they are signed.
Ricciardo has still to prove himself after the debacle at McLaren, where he was humiliated by teammate Lando Norris and replaced by fellow Australian driver Oscar Piastri.
Ricciardo will drive a Red Bull in a tyre test before the British Grand Prix at Silverstone this week.
He has been in the simulator as the reserve driver at Red Bull, but there are varying reports on just how well he is performing.
Some say his simulator times are competitive with those of Verstappen and Perez while Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko, has his doubts.
Suffice to say Ricciardo will have to lay down some serious rubber at Silverstone to stay in the mix as a possible replacement for Perez.
There are similarities between the two drivers. Like Ricciardo, Perez is down on confidence.
There are also the considerations. Ricciardo and Perez are in their 30s while younger drivers are preferred if they can produce competitive times.
This could be a sticking point at Alpha Tauri, Red Bull’s junior team, where rookie Dutch driver Nick de Vries has failed to perform.
Ricciardo says he would consider a drive with Alpha Tauri next year if he can’t get a regular seat at Red Bull.
But like Perez, de Vries may hang on.
Embed from Getty ImagesAt the other teams, Ferrari and Mercedes also have their problems.
Seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton is nearing 40, but as Fernando Alonso at 41 has proved with a string of podium finishes for Aston Martin, age is not necessarily a disadvantage.
Alonso, a double world champion, has appealed to environmental protesters not to invade the Silverstone track during this weekend’s British Grand Prix.
Six protesters ran onto the truck at last year’s race and Just Stop Oil campaigners have disrupted horse racing, rugby and scattered orange powder at the Second Test at Lord’s this year.
English wicket keeper Jonny Bairstow, who was run out in a controversial incident, picked up one of the protestors and ran off the field with him as if he were about to toss him like a caber in the highland games.
Fuelling the oil protest by appealing to them to keep off the track at Silverstone is likely to have the opposite effect.
Meanwhile, track limitation penalties from the Austrian race have changed grid positions behind the podium finishers, with an incredible 1200 instances of cars infringing the white lines by the barest of margins.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was second behind Verstappen with Perez third. Carlos Sainz went from fourth to sixth, Lewis Hamilton from seventh to eighth, Pierre Gasly ninth to tenth, Esteban Ocon 12th to 14th, Nick de Vries from 15th to 17th and Yuki Tsunoda 18th to 19th.
The stewards found there were 83 proven cases of cars going across the white lines with all four wheels.
Does it really matter? Only a few years ago, there were no such penalties in a sport now restricted by a bewildering number of rules and regulations.
Simpler is better.
At Spa, there was a grim reminder on Saturday that motor racing remains dangerous in spite of such safety precautions as the halo, which has saved drivers’ lives.
Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll warned there could be further deaths at the Belgian circuit if changes are not made.
Eighteen-year old Dutch driver Dilano van’t Hoff died in a multi-car crash in a European championship race near the famed Eau Rouge corner where French Formula Two driver Anthoine Hubert was killed four years ago.
PETER COSTER is a former editor and foreign correspondent who has covered a range of international sports, including world championship fights and the Olympic Games.
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