‘Cheeky’ Verstappen toys with rivals as third F1 title looms large
BBC – Max Verstappen is toying with Formula 1 at the moment.
The Dutchman won the Belgian Grand Prix for Red Bull on Sunday at a canter from sixth on the grid while barely appearing to extend himself.
When he wanted to overtake Sergio Perez for the lead, he lapped two seconds faster than his Red Bull team-mate at will.
Once out front Verstappen spent the rest of the race engaging in light-hearted badinage with his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase as they bickered about how hard he should push.
Verstappen was so at ease once in the lead that he was able to joke with his team. After being asked by Lambiase to take it easier on his final set of tyres, due to Red Bull’s concerns about their durability, his response was to suggest he push even harder, extend an even bigger gap and take another set to give the team some pit stop practice.
Not that they need it, given Red Bull consistently have the fastest pit stops.
“He has all reason to be a bit cheeky,” said Toto Wolff, boss of the Mercedes team that two years ago were going toe-to-toe with Verstappen for the title, but now appear helpless and lost in trying to understand just why Red Bull’s advantage is so big.
“[He’s] just driving around. On merit. Nothing else to say. As much as it’s annoying.”
Though Verstappen’s searing pace may have given the impression that he ignored Lambiase’s demands to back off, especially once he crossed the line 22.3 seconds ahead of the only man in the same car, that was not the reality.
Verstappen, Lambiase said after the race, “did listen”. It just didn’t look like it, so great was his superiority.
Verstappen took a dominant pole position won by more than 0.8 seconds, but was demoted five places by a grid penalty for using too many gearbox parts.
It took him just over 16 of the 44 laps to reach the front of the field. “I’m surprised it took him so long,” Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said.
Horner quickly qualified that he was joking, but you know what they say about many a true word. His remark actually reflected the belief throughout the F1 paddock – before the grand prix started many were debating how many laps it would take Verstappen to get into the lead.
“What we are witnessing with Max at the moment,” Horner said, “is something you see once in a generation.
“Like all the great drivers, he has that extra capacity. And what we’re seeing is his ability to read a tyre, read a race, extract absolutely everything out of it. It’s great to see. He is just at the top of his form.”