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.
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)
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!
Anne Smit
Guest
or people vote for him because of the way he handled himself after his misfortunes which was way better than Kimi did. That is a part of drivership also.
Anne Smit
Guest
Even in the Netherlands a lot of people are wondering why Verstappen was voted driver of the days. Most of them said Alonso was the best one. I think the problem is that nowadays you can vote very early in the race. Verstappen had by then made two very nice overtaking moves in a by then dull race and people were able to vote before his crapy pittstop. The overtaking moves from Alonso came very late and by then probably people already had been making there vote.
Rodney Gordon
Expert
There certainly was one at one time! It's always going to be a popularity contest, but like all such contests you either need to accept the results for what they are or dictate when it's being taking advantage of... which it clearly was this weekend.
jacques of lilydale
Guest
What a joke that award has become. It's a popularity contest , nothing more than that. Half of Holland must be on line voting for Max. he had an abysmal race, that has showed up his immaturity and lack of race nous in not being able to look after his tyres. He defied team orders and came in anyway, his tyres were pretty shot, but they were not expecting him. I'm sure he's starting to believe his own press. Surely there's a judge of fact that can veto a popularity award.
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
Imagine if 'Driver of the Day' was turned into a contest. Instead of being in with a chance of winning a year's supply of KFC, Bernie could give you a Rolex. Or a year's supply of Heineken.
Rodney Gordon
Expert
Exactly Jawad, I said something similar in the answer above - great minds! It also reminds me of cricket voting contest like "Classic Catches" where most of the options are from the home broadcaster, and one of those almost always wins.
Rodney Gordon
Expert
Maybe they could offer up three candidates that voters choose from? That why can control the non-sense while still making the audience feel like they are making something like a democratic choice.... I'll pitch it to Bernie ;)
Rodney Gordon
Expert
Great comment! Where's our awards, I ask you?
Rodney Gordon
Expert
It would have to be, no other explanation
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
Kind of reminds me when Cricket Australia initially allowed the 'Player of the Match' to be decided through a fan vote on their app, back when that was new. They soon learned that fans are just going to vote for the most popular player, as supposed to the one who has delivered the best performance. One way of addressing the 'Driver of the Day' vote, could be to limit the selection of drivers available for the vote. Perhaps five who the regulators deem to have had worthy races. I understand it takes away the current freedom that fans have in their voting, but it'll give a more accurate result as to who deserves the accolade.
Cento
Guest
Just when you think F1 is starting to get its act together, something like this happens to remind you that there is still a lot of irrationality in the sport. Maybe to receive driver of the day you need to actually finish the race to qualify. Can't be that hard surely?
deleteaccountplease
Roar Rookie
100% Agreed, while he has set the F1 community on fire, we need to realise that there were other drivers on the grid at America that put in 10 times the performance that Verstappen did! Great article
Ian
Guest
Wasn't it proven that around 25% for the US GP came from the Netherlands?