And what’s scarier for Verstappen’s rivals: he gets out of the RB20 like someone just taking a morning walk in the park, not someone who has been battling the power of an F1 car for 2 hours before.
When winning is breathing
Verstappen’s third race championship this season came just two weeks after the brake fire incident at the Australian GP. At that time, Carlos Sainz’s championship gave a little hope to fans that this season might not be a one-sided race like how Verstappen won in 2023. But the championship at Suzuka extinguished it. That ray of hope. Since July 2022, Verstappen has never gone two consecutive races without winning the championship.
There are still 20 races left in the season, but Mercedes boss Toto Wolff had to raise the white flag by declaring: “No one will be able to catch Max this year. The way he drives, the way he manages the tires and the car are all great.” great”. That is an undeniable fact. Since winning the controversial first race in Abu Dhabi in 2021, Verstappen has only failed to win in 10/48 races. Three of those 10 championships belonged to Sergio Pérez, his teammate at Red Bull.
Verstappen’s thinly veiled threats about wanting to leave Red Bull ahead of the Saudi Arabia GP, and Wolff’s public interest have at least kept journalists busy over the past few weeks. But apart from the weekend in Melbourne, on-track surprises have been kept to a minimum. Verstappen mentioned recent rumors about his future in a rather cheerful tone: “Recently, Toto has been very kind, saying a lot of good things about me.” Meanwhile, Red Bull boss Christian Horner was cool, with a wink: “Can’t be subjective, there are still 20 races left. I’ve learned not to listen too much to what Toto has said all these years.” .
Would it be more attractive if Red Bull did not dominate?
Regardless of whether Horner wanted to listen to Wolff or not, most neutral fans shared the view that “things will be very interesting if you remove Verstappen and Red Bull from the picture”.
There is no doubt that budget caps have helped the teams with their finances, although the fact that Williams and Alpine are operating without a reserve fund at this stage of the season suggests there are still problems. Currently, F1 is clearly divided into groups: Red Bull is alone in a group; Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Aston Martin in another group; and other teams in the remaining group.
And in the end, the number of people watching F1 determines everything that happens after that, and that is determined by the performances on the track. F1’s global ratings fell when Michael Schumacher dominated in the 2000s and rose again in the 2010s during Hamilton’s dominance, and it appears the situation is recurring. How many of the new fans F1 has welcomed in recent years will turn away if Red Bull continues to dominate?
Immediately after declaring Verstappen the 2024 world champion, Wolff made an unconvincing argument as to why fans should continue to watch a season that runs until early December when the result is easily predicted in April. “We’ve seen Ferrari get closer to him (Verstappen) in some previous races, and I think we can get closer to Ferrari than we showed today,” Wolff said. “So F1 is still attractive. I believe the competition is quite close between P3 and P2 and sometimes down to P8.”
The king’s power
Reality on the track is the most accurate answer. Last Sunday afternoon, Perez finished 12 seconds behind Verstappen, while Ferrari’s Sainz finished another 20 seconds behind. And the only reason why Verstappen couldn’t lead every lap was because of the time he entered the pitstop to change tires. Ferrari has clearly improved a lot since the dark days of 2022, but what happened at Suzuka is a reminder that, in terms of racing speed, they still cannot compete with Red Bull. Design legend Adrian Newey and his engineering team are still heavily developing Red Bull’s RB20 to keep it at the top.
Of course, the human factor is still very important. On days like this past Sunday, when Verstappen seems to be just touching the outer limits of his talent, or the pure performance of his car, many have to wonder how much more Verstappen can shine. . “He wanted to know not only who was behind him, but… how long they were lap times,” Horner said of Verstappen’s calm radio messages throughout the race. “His ability is still very impressive. Last season’s form is still maintained. He still has a wise mind on his relatively young shoulders.”
