Racing drivers, as a requirement, must be equipped with a certain degree of tenacity and self-possession. Whether their cup floweth over in this department or is merely undervalued by half its potential is usually what separates the great from the very good.
Max Verstappen – according to most pundits with a polished cornea – falls into the former category.
Fresh onto the Formula One grid in 2015, it was glaringly obvious that Verstappen had talent to burn and wasn’t concerned about incinerating a few bridges along the way to prove it.
Under the spotlight of the world media in Montreal, Max came under fire from the press and veteran Felipe Massa for his accident at Monaco with the Brazilian. Felipe, thinking he’d shaken the 18-year old into stoic submission, was caught off guard when Verstappen fired back on full offensive.
Call it assurance or over-confidence, Max is no shrinking violet.
And he has no reason to be. Like Daniel Ricciardo, Verstappen is one of the rare breed of drivers that coax their car into a corner and have their exit already planned well before their opponent has hit the brake pedal.
Not only does this talent buy tenths over a lap, but it aggregates over a race distance, which is why Ferrari have made no secret he’s at the pointy-end of their future shopping list.
But perhaps Maranello should be more discreet in their advances, given the cracks that appeared in Verstappen’s seemingly immaculate veneer during last Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix.
Verstappen, fifth on the grid, began his race in impeccable fashion, holding off a poor-starting Hamilton during his opening stint. But mediocre strategy calls and a tardy pit-stop (the crew unprepared for an impetuous pit-entry by Max) curbed his momentum as Verstappen found himself staring at his team mate, Carlos Sainz’s gearbox in a battle for ninth behind the slower Renault of Jolyon Palmer.
“Can I try to get past?” screamed Verstappen; just one in a repertoire of maledictions throughout the race.
“Come on, we have to do something! It’s a joke.”
Sainz had just executed a text-book move on the Force India of Sergio Perez just a lap earlier and in doing so, allowed his teammateVerstappen to follow him through in pursuit of Palmer.
“Let me drive, this takes too long. He’s holding me up!”
In reality, it was Palmer who was holding up the pair of Toro Rosso’s, but Verstappen was having none of it. The expectations of the Formula One paddock appeared to have spawned a feverish anxiety in the young Belgian-Dane that until now, had lay dormant until the presumption of a Ferrari contract had been dangled over his nose-cone.
Compare this with Sebastian Vettel’s conduct during the season closer last year in Abu Dhabi. Despite enjoying a tacit number one status at Ferrari, the German pulled over to let teammate Kimi Raikkonen past in what he suspected to be shaping up as a team stratagem.
“I’m assuming that was in the game plan”, said Vettel coolly over the radio.
Nobody was going to ask Seb to step aside, but he took the initiative anyway. A team player. An antipodean figure to the one we were used to watching at Red Bull. You certainly wouldn’t see that kind of maturity at Mercedes, with histrionics between Hamilton and Rosberg always bubbling below the surface.
With Ferrari progressively shedding their ‘Italianisms’ and becoming a more measured, cosmopolitan team like we saw in the 2000’s, it mightn’t be an ideal time to have an impetuous Verstappen on the books.
I’m not Verstappen’s manager and I don’t know if a provisional contract has been drawn up between Max and Maranello, but the Verstappen we saw in Melbourne tends to suggest he thinks the contract is already set in stone. And having his father Jos, hanging around the Toro Rosso garage like the proverbial Damir Dokić can hardly be helping matters.
Jean-Eric Vergne lost his Toro Rosso drive when it became painfully evident to Red Bull that his temperament would not navigate the pointy-end of the Formula One grid and was promptly replaced by Verstappen’s current team mate, the unflappable Carlos Sainz.
Despite Verstappen stealing the headlines, there is very little to separate the pair, but Sainz always appears the most composed of the two. Something Verstappen would do well to take note of.
Sometimes there’s more to self-possession than just blind confidence.
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