How Dominant Has Verstappen Been Really?

a Max is currently on an absolute tear he's hit that point in his career where he himself is in his absolute prime in terms of speed and experience and Red Bull themselves are finally giving him cars two consistently fight for race wins and championships even this season although checo has put up a really good fight so far in 2023 I don't think that there's any doubt in terms of who's going to come out on top already just five races into the season or when great drivers are dominating and look absolutely Unstoppable I think even though in the moment it's difficult to fully appreciate how well they're driving I still wanted to talk about Max on this current stretch and give my thoughts on how good he's really been and how it's not necessarily his wins that have impressed me the most but something completely different entirely before we talk about the current Purple Patch that he is having I think more often gets forgotten is that apart from his rookie season in 2015 which was spent in a Toro Rosso since his early season promotion to Red Bull in 2016 he has won a race in every single season now granted even though he hasn't always driven Championship level cause the Red Bulls even during their weak seasons have always had tracks where they've gone pretty well at like Monaco Austria and Mexico even though Ricardo also won a race in every single season that he was Max's teammate it's still impressive that on the days where Red Bull genuinely could compete for a race win Maxwell's always there to put the pressure on Lewis and Mercedes and he was always there to capitalize on Races when things did come his way and now before we move on if you love McLaren F1 the Indy 500 the lemon 24 hour or the Monaco Grand Prix then I have got a little something for you Sun God have been McLaren's official eyewear brand since 2021 and for the Monaco Grand Prix they are launching a special pair of sunglasses to celebrate the Triple Crown history of the Monaco Grand Prix McLaren are the only team within the last 100 years to have won the Triple Crown winning their first Indy 500 in 1974 The Monaco Grand Prix in 1984 and then completing the Triple Crown by winning the Le Mans 24-hour in 1995. sun god were kind enough to send me a pair which is just what the doctor ordered with Summer around the corner and so if you're looking for a pair of really high quality sunglasses with a motorsport theme then check out their Link at the very top of the description and thank you again to McLaren and sun god we often talk about drivers being in their Prime and I think that word in general is a very subjective word but in the context of Formula One probably even more so so much of our perception of how well a driver is driving I think is dependent on the competitiveness of their car but even so to me I have always regarded what I consider to be prime Max verstappen to have started in 2019 now it's not so much that he got faster in 2019 but I think that he was a much more complete driver in the years before he always had the Speed but there were moments of immaturity both in and out of the car he was also still making a few unforced errors and also was involved in a few wheel-to-wheel collisions that at the time brought him the nickname crash dappen with the departure of Ricardo and also Having learned from his accident-filled start to 2018 I really think in 2019 we saw the more complete Max and with Ricardo gone Max had to mature anyway because despite still being in his early 20s he was now the experienced leader of the team and I think that not only did he rise to that challenge but I think he thrived in it which is why he became a better and more mature all-round driver now even though I think he matured massively going into 2019 as we saw even this season with Rosalind Baku after the Sprint Max occasionally will still have those moments where he doesn't shy away or even try to avoid confrontation now even though I sometimes don't agree with it I do accept that it's just part of his mental makeup and in a way it's that mentality for good or For Worse that also makes him the ruthless driver and winner that he is no driver is perfect both in and out of the car with everything that they say and do Fernando Alonso is a great example driving wise I think Fernando is an absolute genius but sometimes when I listen to his antagonistic and sarcastic comments as much as I love them for the entertainment value I'm also thinking in the back of my mind is that really the smartest thing to say Max is exactly the same like every driver Lewis Charles George he is not perfect but he is wired the way that he's wired because that's the mentality that got him to where he is today and you just have to accept him for who he is and who he's not before 2021 when Max really started to compete for race wins on a regular basis I do also want to give a shout out to his 2020 season which I actually think might go down as probably his most underrated this was of course the covert hit season where we went to tracks that we'd never raced at before and also raced multiple times on the same tracks as well despite going up against a dominant Lewis and Mercedes Max still Master take two wins out of 17 races winning the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix when Mercedes had massive tire wear problems and also winning the last race in Abu Dhabi when Lewis by his own admission was not back to full health after missing the previous race with kovid a Max capitalized on all of the opportunities that came his way and although he only finished third in the championship he was just nine points behind valtteri who was driving one of dominant cause in Formula One history in the last three years starting in 2021 he has had Championship level cars that have allowed him to consistently fight for race wins however what has really impressed me about Max is not necessarily how many races he's won it's how rare it is for him to be outside of the top two on weekends where nothing goes wrong and no external factors have affected his weekend firstly let's look at 2021 in some races he simply lost out to the combination of Lewis and Mercedes because on the day they were just faster and did a better job those were races like Porter Mao Spain and Sao Paulo although even then Max always finished in second place to minimize the damage or when you look at the races where he didn't finish either first or second in Azerbaijan he retired because his tire exploded whilst he was in the lead of the race in Silverstone he crashed out after a collision with Lewis which to me was more Lewis's fault in Hungary he got taken out by bottas and was on a recovery drive and then the only other time he finished outside of the top two was in Monza where again he crashed out after a collision with Lewis and on this occasion I think that was more on Max the point being that Monza aside the only times where Max finished outside of the top two were races when where external factors outside of his control prevented him from having a clean race moving into 2022 again if we ignore the races that he won and also the race is where Ferrari or Mercedes were just better which in 2022 was literally just two races in Austria and Brazil the races in which he finished outside of the top two were Bahrain due to a reliability issue Australia due to a reliability issue Monaco where there was quite a lot of shenanigans going on with checo crashing out which I won't put on Max Silverstone where he picked up floor damage and then Singapore where the team made a miscalculation with his fuel in qualifying or once again when Max genuinely has a clean weekend with nothing affecting him and no teammates preventing him from completing a lap he only lost two races on Pure Performance finally moving on to 2023 although we've only had five races so far in the two races that he hasn't managed to win in Jeddah he had a drive shaft issue in Q2 which left him starting in p15 and then in Baku he was actually leading the race ahead of checo and it was only the timing of the safety car which meant that checo then managed to jump him and hold him off for the win as there is a very real possibility there if small things went Max's way he could have won all five of the races so far this season now of course reliability strategical decisions safety car timings all of these things are part of racing that some days will go your way and some days will go against you when I look at Max's dominance it's not the races that he's won that have impressed me the most it's how freakishly consistent he is even when he's having a bad day or when he finishes outside of the top two nine out of ten times there is always an underlying reason during that weekend that causes that result and since 2021 if you just give Max a clean weekend with zero issues apart from a couple of races a season he is basically finishing either first or second in every single one of them or when it comes to his stats during this period it is really just incredible since 2021 and azold recording this video in 49 races he has taken 28 grand prix wins which works out to a 57 win percentage and in that time he has also taken 40 podiums and 19 pole positions and now even though the poll numbers might seem a little bit light relative to his number of wins I don't think that that is a massive indictment of verstappen's qualifying ability and now do I think that Leclair is a better driver over one lap yeah I do I think leclair's qualifying ability is literally the best on the grid and I think that his lack of race wins off the back of those poles is more an indictment on Ferrari who haven't been able to give him a better race car or with Red Bull especially since 2022 it's been almost the opposite and Max knows that the strengths of his car come on a Sunday and that's what has led to some of his most outrageous drives or winning from 11th on the grid in Hungary last year and then in the very next race winning from 14th on the grid at Spar and taking the outright lead of the race by just lap 18 of the race there has been moments over the past couple of years where the best word to describe Max verstappen has been inevitable it hasn't been a question of Will he win the race but it's been a question of how long will it take him to get into the lead and then win the race and that has also been true when it comes to his ability to score points since the start of 2016 which includes the four races he did with Toro Rosso if you take away the times where he retired and didn't get to the checkered flag because of a reliability issue or a crash guess how many times he's finished outside of the points in eight years or once when Max verstappen has reached the checkered flag he has failed to finish in the points just one time in eight years which came at the 2016 Belgium Grand Prix when he finished in 11th Max's consistency and speed has been exactly there consistent throughout all of his career it's just that now in his absolute prime with all of that experience and better judgment in a race-winning car we are watching an all-time driver drive a level that almost feels unbeatable but having said that just like in all sports where an individual or a team are dominating the conversation very quickly moves on to nor how long will they dominate but who is going to be the one to knock them off their throne oh well there you have it if you did enjoy this video and want to support the channel then don't forget to subscribe that would be massively appreciated and I'll see you in the next one [Music] foreign

Channel: Aldas

Views: 92,602

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Id: P2C1In2ZE0E

Length: 13min 28sec (808 seconds)

Published: Wed May 24 2023