SPO: What Makes a Great Champion – Part 2

Hello and welcome back to Steve’s Motorsport Blog! Today we have the second instalment of my “Great Champions” SPO mini-series.

In Part 1, I talked about what qualities past Formula 1 drivers had that set themselves apart in my mind to allow them to be considered GREAT champions. In this next part, I want to talk about what would make somebody not a GREAT champion with respect to what I mentioned previously.

DISCLAIMER: I originally started writing these posts back in March 2023, after the 3rd round of the Formula 1 season. It took me a while to edit this post to the point I felt it was good enough to publish.

I want to talk about something that has been irking me for a while now whilst I’ve been watching Formula 1. I will get this out of way immediately, in that this will be very controversial, especially if you are a fan of a specific team/driver that I am going to mention. However, I feel these things need to be said, so here we go.

I will start off by saying that Max Verstappen is a prodigious talent. This was very clear the second he got his Toro Rosso seat at the ripe old age of 17. He has shown time and time again, that he has the talent deserving of a Formula 1 champion. This is not what I have issue with, it’s his personality and actions not directly related to wheeling a car that is.

This flew under the radar until 2021, where we didn’t really see him under pressure and Red Bull struggled to get race wins regularly. Once 2021 came around and he was gunning for his first championship win, we saw the ugly side start coming out.

Again, I want to reiterate that I am not a Lewis Hamilton fan, but Lewis has shown more of an effort to relent and to not take anything for granted (lose the battle, but win the war). Of the multiple clashes between him and Max in 2021, only 1 (Silverstone) in my opinion was his fault. Every other clash was absolutely Max’s greed and over-aggressiveness at play. Max has gotten this terrible “I am King, do my bidding” mentality, that he just assumes everybody will bend the knee as he goes by, due to his prodigious talent. Lewis has so far, been the only driver to call him out on it.

I would have thought that after his maiden championship win in 2021, that we might see a more relaxed and mature Max. I was wrong, and he has arguably gotten worse. After around Spain during the 2022 season, when he took over the championship lead from Charles LeClerc, the only person who could challenge him for the title was himself and the reliability of the car.

So why have we seen such pettiness towards his teammate who is just trying his best to stay relevant to Horner and Marko to stay in the only winning outfit of his career? Whenever Max has orders to benefit Sergio, he has not once agreed. His overwhelming ego makes him look like a spoiled child.

I get that most champions have that relentless drive of competition. I get that if you don’t push yourself to the limits then you don’t know where you stand. I get that it’s survival of the fittest. However, when you are on top of the world, I think a bit of maturity is essential. So why put down somebody who is undoubtedly not of the same calibre as you?

A prime example of this is when he did not give Perez the place back in Brazil when he’s not challenging for a win (or a podium even at that). This was requested of him so that Red Bull could attempt to secure Sergio P2 in the drivers standings.

However, the reason he didn’t comply was all because of a perceived slight over 5 months prior in Monaco, that Sergio crashed in qualifying on purpose, so that Max would start behind him. This ultimately led to Sergio winning the race when Ferrari botched their race strategy.

Max took offence to this and let this fester inside until he felt it right to exact his revenge…at the end of the season when it didn’t mean squat to anybody and was largely forgotten by everybody, including myself.

This was the most selfish, ridiculous, and petty act I have ever witnessed in my life. Other champions have handled similar situations in a different way. Let’s for example, remember back to Schumacher giving Barrichello the win in Indy after a team order a few races before from Ferrari that asked Rubens to give up the win for Michael.

Max had already clinched his second title and Red Bull’s latest title a few rounds before this, so it was of no consequence to him to do this. Instead, not only ignoring the order, but he lambasted his engineer and the wider management group OVER THE LIVE RADIO, which was incredibly stupid. It’s actions like this that not only make him look bad, but the team as well. Unfortunately, Red Bull are a team designed to stroke is ego so hard, that he now has the environment where he can do anything and get away with it. That is a topic for another day in of its self.

This most recently came up again in Jeddah, where Max ignored an order from the pit wall to take it easy while he was behind Sergio in the closing laps of the grand prix. I get the drive to win, it’s the one thing that exists in every competitor, but this is so early in the season, that I doubt this makes a dent in his eventual points total. (Future Steve in edit here: I was proven right. Max has walked away with the championship as of July 2023)

Regardless of how Sergio does on the street circuits, those only comprise of a handful of events in a long 23-event calendar. Max is going to win, barring some incredible run of events that prevent him from achieving what the car’s pace can give him. It just won’t matter. If I was Max, I would keep Sergio happy so that he can call upon the Mexican Minister of Defence at some point in the future. Now at this point, if I was Sergio, I wouldn’t be willing to help Max out unless I got paid a bonus to do so.

Max has caused this undue tension in the team where he is the clear number 1 driver. It’s rare that this happens in a team (notably during the 2016 season at Mercedes, the Prost/Senna years or the Hamilton/Alonso year at McLaren). The difference in those aforementioned years, is that those teammates were duking it out between themselves for the title. Max and Sergio are not. The gulf between them is too great for Sergio to realistically have a chance.

Max causes more potential harm to Red Bull by continuing this nonsensical, selfish rhetoric than if he were to relent and be a good teammate every once in a while. It’s because of this, that I cannot, in good conscience, consider him a great champion…at least not yet. Obviously my opinion can be swayed as he undoubtedly has over a decade and a bit of racing still left in him. However, time will only tell.

As of right now, I can consider Max the antithesis of what a great champion should be. He has not bettered Red Bull; they could put any of a slew of other drivers in that car and achieve largely the same results as right now. If Max left, Horner, Marko and Newey will be there to make sure they are still competitive.

I could argue that with the exception of his home country of the Netherlands, he has not bettered the sport. The only thing going for him is that he represents a “changing of the guard”…ie some fresh young talented driver be the face of F1. However, I would argue that if Max were not there, there would be the likes of Norris, Piastri, LeClerc and Russell to keep that going. Max is not special in this regard.

I could even make the argument that F1 would be better off in achieving its wider societal goals without Max. All that Max does, whenever he is upset (and at times spurred on by Red Bull…again another topic for another day) is that he just riles up his fan base and the wider public. Once that happens, sometimes we get situations, where like after the Silverstone accident, Red Bull and F1 as a whole had to issue statements condemning the racist rhetoric that was being slung around on social media towards Hamilton. I’m not saying that Max fans are racist, but it’s times like these where those people come out of the woodwork with their megaphones, using his anger as fuel.

I doubt that Formula 1 wants this, and it’s not what is good for the sport. If the great champions of the sport are supposed to be role models and the epitome of who people should aspire to be like, then Max is doing a terrible job at it, in my opinion.

For an example of who can be considered a good role model, we can look no further than Hungary 2021. I am talking about George coming over the radio pleading with the team to put him to work to help Latifi score the most points he could in that bizarre race. A case where the clear number 1 driver is willing to sacrifice his own race for the better of his (much) slower teammate. Give George a championship and he will be instantly a better champion than Max.

I do hope that Max changes into a more mature driver, I really do. However, I don’t see that happening anytime soon. I hope I’m wrong.

I can only hope he turns out to be more like NASCAR’s Kyle Busch; a wonderkid in his own right, who after many years of being…let’s say…fiery, has calmed down in his later years, relatively speaking. Kyle’s nature today is more championly than that of his earlier years.

Max can still show us that he can mature into the champion Formula 1 needs him to be, but we will have to see in due time.

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