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Max Verstappen earning Driver Of The Day in the US is ridiculous

26th October, 2016
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Max Verstappen: If you're good enough, you're old enough. (Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool)
Expert
26th October, 2016
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Despite an embarrassing race weekend in the United States, Max Verstappen left Austin with yet another Driver Of The Day award, his third in a row and seventh for the season.

Occasionally the Driver Of The Day honour is given to drivers that have won the race in dominating fashion, like when Nico Rosberg utterly destroyed the field in Monza.

Other times drivers that perform above their station are recognised, like Perez making the podium in Monaco and Baku or Magnussen scoring Renault’s first points since rejoining Formula One in Russia.

So it’s surprising that an award that is determined by presumably knowledgeable Formula One fans (they’d have to be to even be aware of the award) would give credence to such an undeserving performance.

Verstappen achieved nothing during the race. He qualified in P4 a few tenths slower than his teammate, ran in fourth for most of the race with little-to-no hope of improving, disastrously pitted when his team wasn’t ready for him, then retired for a DNF. His retirement was completed in a manner that ruined his teammate’s chances of a second placing.

His only highlight from the race was a radio exchange during which he pleaded with his team to allow him to fight for position (even though I’m sure that’s exactly what the team are trying to help him to do) with the highly tweetable quip “I’m not here to finish fourth”.

Not really driver of the day material is it?

Solid performances in Japan and Malaysia where he claimed P2 were certainly meritorious. Although you would think that Ricciardo, having out-driven his teammate and winning the race in Malaysia, would have made him a shoe-in for the award.

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Voting for Driver Of The Day has been sketchy from the very first instance. It was introduced to give the media more to write about, and to involve the fans they way other series do – with Formula E’s ‘Fanboost’ the most notable example.

During the opening round in Australia, Manor pay-driver Rio Harayanto collected tens of thousands of votes despite retiring from the race. Suspecting that the public had made a mockery of their new distinction, his achievement was excluded on the grounds of “voter irregularities” (see also: trolls).

Online voting itself has issues, you only have to look at the infamous Boaty McBoatface case study for an example of what can go wrong when you give the internet unvetted power.

There’s no question that Verstappen is capturing the attention of a new, younger audience and reigniting national passions within his homeland of the Netherlands.

Anecdotally, he was responsible for tens of thousands of extra ticket sales for this year’s Belgium Grand Prix. His arrival in Formula One led to a sudden and dramatic jump in viewership in the Netherlands from 124,000 viewers per race in 2014 to 309,000 viewers per race in 2015 (at least if sketchy, unverified infographics are to be believed)

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The truth of the matter is, any of the top seven or eight drivers drove better than Verstappen on the weekend. Even if he had finished the race. That’s not just my opinion, that’s an objective, indisputable fact!

I’m not saying Verstappen shouldn’t keep his award – but the will of the people might be adhered to!

Vote 1: Give Harayanto he’s damned award back!

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