The season of definitive consecration of Max Verstappen, three-time world champion without rivals in a 2023 that saw him as a cannibal and dominator, ends in Abu Dhabi. The Dutchman who criticizes, responds, who is not afraid of not being liked and who by playing into his hands gives us the most sincere portrait of a driver destined for greatness
He never cared much about judgments. Max Verstappen sits in the center of the paddock press conference room with his chin held high, his foot tapping up and down. He listens to the journalists’ questions, snorts, smiles, whispers something in the ear of the pilot next to him and wrinkles his nose laughing. He doesn’t mince words there either, he’s not afraid of confrontation even when he’s out of the car, without the big dark helmet to hide his head, his thoughts. If he doesn’t like a question, he says so himself. If he has already been asked the same opinion other times during the season, he says so himself.
For years he was portrayed as the obnoxious one of the group, as the young know-it-all ready to threaten to “punch” a journalist when faced with yet another provocative question. And that drawing, that sketch on the still blank sheet of paper of his career in Formula 1, could destroy him. He could take a seventeen-year-old who had just arrived in the top flight and tear him to pieces, handing over time a shooting star, a child prodigy who grew up too quickly.
Yet Max Verstappen gritted his teeth. He didn’t retreat, he didn’t round off the corners. He did it on the track, where time and experience gave him a mental strength that he didn’t possess before. But he didn’t do it in many aspects of his character, tough and indomitable, the son of a life spent on the track, fighting to be the best, the dominator. And today, with the end of a season that crowns him three-time world champion, Max Verstappen knows he has achieved that title, that he is the man to beat, the driver to watch.
“Now you have a role” those around him seem to tell him. From Chris Horner to his father Jos Verstappen, from colleagues to former drivers.Everyone advises him, everyone invites him to lower his tone, to think before speaking his mind at any cost. But precisely because Max Verstappen has a role today, a large and complex role, those tones have never been stronger than this. Don’t like the Vegas show? He says it. Does he run a fun Grand Prix that changes his mind on the track? He doesn’t hide it. He does not maintain a line at all costs just to protect himself from the criticism of those who accuse him (and in fact, he immediately accused him) of being inconsistent.
It lies in his sincerity, all the coherence of this boy. In the compliments he pays to the drivers he appreciates, in the calmness with which he shrugs his shoulders and praises Leclerc (“In the flying lap one of the best ever” or “It doesn’t surprise me when he does well, I know what it’s worth”) or Norris, Russell and even great rival Lewis Hamilton. And he is in the criticism, in the questions he sometimes raises, in the indifference with which he responds to attacks and in the frankness with which he rejects what he doesn’t love, from Drive to Survive to the obsession with social media.
And in Abu Dhabi, where one last great Sunday closed his perfect season, Max smiles sincerely, big. Great for his three world titles won at just 26 years old, great for all the records he destroyed this year, those belonging to huge names, legends of a motorsport that the Dutchman loves more than anything. Great of his life outside of Formula 1, where he continues to prefer his normality, the privacy of a boy far from the lights of the show. It is the season of his definitive greatness, that of a Max Verstappen without rivals and without half measures. Unique, in his own way. And forever different from everyone else.
