Verstappen doesn’t know how to lose and anyone who follows F1 knows it. And I’m trying to imitate a fairly famous western film. Sergio Leone. Or to paraphrase it. If anyone doesn’t know what I’m talking about, well… they have a huge problem. Advice: look for it and watch it. Because that film is so much about F1, Even if it does not look so. Ah… were you asking me the title? Sorry, I almost forgot: “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” (1966).
So, you might say, what does the good guy and the bully have to do with anything? In the meantime, let’s start from here. The good guy and the bully, sportingly speaking, are the two complementary and inseparable faces of Max Verstappen. One raised with rudeness and harshness almost obsolete for our times, by a father, Ifwho had to see in his son the best mirror of himself. One who grew up with the killer instinct, declined on 300 km/h racing cars. A bully who does not accept being overtaken, even if he has everything to lose. Especially if he has everything to lose. An alpha male who does not accept that someone throws in his face the shame of being overtaken immediately.
I’d rather throw you out than let you pass. Either you get on top of me or you don’t pass. Well, you get the idea. It’s a bit of a timeless story of fable of the scorpion and the frogattributed to Aesop but probably much older. I refresh my memory: there is a river to cross and there are a scorpion and a frog nearby. The scorpion wants a lift from the frog to overcome the waters. Not knowing how to swim, in fact he would drown. The frog: “Not even dead!”. To which the arachnid argues that he could never sting her because he would also condemn himself to death.
The frog is convinced. The scorpion climbs onto her back. Halfway through the ford, however, he stings her with his poisonous and deadly sting. The frog, while the two are about to be swallowed up by the waters where they will die, asks the scorpion: “Why?” He replies: “I can’t help it, it’s my nature”. Max he is one of those. He cannot deny his nature as a “bully”. However, he is also someone who has a unique and exquisite talent for driving at the limit in F1.
Without the second, the first would have been a copy of If, no more, no less. A driver, the father, who has not gone down in the history of the automobile except for his extreme rudeness, so to speak, and the risk of ending up flambéed with a Benetton who had tampered with the petrol fillers to make refueling quicker (1994, Silverstone). He was at the head of the stable at that moment Briatore. But let’s get back to the point. Max is a star of the first magnitude. One of the greatest. One who has that half a second in his foot regardless of the rest, compared to almost all the other drivers.
But he is also someone who from the beginning has shown himself accustomed to maneuvers at the limit or beyond. And who often got away with it because he was considered a talent and a phenomenon. For maneuvers similar to his, another who had an absolute talent but also the instinct of the killer and the cannibal like Schumacher had its own troubles (see Jerez 1997). So Max he’s the good guy and the bully. And his two natures coexist, there’s little to do. And if he treats his friends like he treated his super friend yesterday Norristhink about how he treats others…
You will tell me, on the track you are not friends. Real. But there’s always a limit, right? Some will still object: “Norris he’s not very good at hand-to-hand combat.” Can be. But seeing and reviewing the incident and the previous stages, it is clear that Max he exceeded the limit several times and that he deliberately accompanied Norris off the track on the outside, subsequently damaging his and the other car F1 and continuing the “duel” even after the tire had gone, almost as if to underline, until the end, who was the toughest and the hardest.
And to think that in the last races and in the first part of the Austrian Grand Prix F1 and over the weekend we had seen the “handsome” one, that is, someone capable of extracting from a RB20often grumpy, the best. To manage the race. All then wasted by those 3 or 4 laps really over the top and ruining the race of the Red Bull. Someone told me, I swear, about Twitter or X, which in the end Max also gained from, in a global perspective. And it’s true. But can we really weigh the points with the embarrassment made in front of the world and at home of the Red Bull? You know my answer, since the question is rhetorical.
As for the “bad” one, needless to say it is the Ferrari. A team that in the space of a few races has become from second to fourth force. Prisoner of herself and all her stratified flaws in a group that is incapable of winning. Something inexplicable!? Inexplicable if you don’t know the dynamics of the Ferrari technical group since 2014 to today. Then everything becomes very explainable, clear, sunny. Because there are few certainties in life. One is that we must die, the other that Ferrari he is always capable of making his cars worse F1. A bad one Ferrari. Which we have unfortunately become accustomed to for too long.
F1, Austrian GP: Verstappen gets a resounding bad rating on his report card…
Max. Vote: 4.
For the reasons above.
Leclerc. Vote: 5.
We say little or nothing about the race. The weekend is a lot of his responsibility in trying to overdo it. Charles He has the qualities of a champion. But when something goes wrong, then he loses.
Sainz. Vote: 7.
You can’t do more with this SF-24 which seems like a bad copy of itself. Podium, third place which gives oxygen. And amen.
Vasseur and his latest statements. Vote: Binotto get out of that body…
Perez. Vote: love.
Keep it up, dear Sergio! We are with you!
Russell. Vote: 10.
Being in the right place at the right time is also a gift. Chapeau.
McLaren. Rating: Red Bull Life Insurance.
With such a high-performance single-seater but which then collects so little in the race, Max secured his fourth title in carriage. At least the races are more fun. And it’s no small thing compared to the brand’s death toll 2023.
Cardile. Vote: good job…
If the morning shows the day, it won’t be a big loss. Cardile in Aston Martin. He will certainly bring his brilliant intuitions, which have yielded so many titles Maranelloto the “verdona” full of money, and certainly with the same excellent results…
Jos Verstappen vs Horner. Rating: and we’re only at the appetizer…
Gravel. Rating: it works.
And it didn’t take a genius to figure that out.
Track Limit. Rating: Really?
One of the gigantic problems of Fia and of every contemporary “political” body it is the bureaucratic and formalistic overabundance compared to the rest.
How can you count track exits as infractions if they are caused by a fight where, among other things, time is being taken and not earned?
Stroll senior renewing Stroll junior. Vote: the news of the century…
Arriva Silverstone and, needless to say, I am very worried about Maranello. Hopefully Norris let us have fun…
Author: Mariano Froldi – @MarianoFroldi
Images: Oracle Red Bull Racing F1-TV
