Max Verstappen, leader in crisis with Formula 1: why the two-time world champion is thinking of leaving the top flight

Max Verstappen He is 25 and has a contract with Red Bull until 2028. In addition, he is the two-time defending champion of the Formula 1 and the big candidate to win again this year, despite only three big prizes being up for grabs.

However, the Dutchman doesn’t imagine himself a long-lived driver in the category. Even less if the changes of Liberty Media are advancing, which two years ago incorporated the Sprint races. “I’m not a fan of this, not at all”he noted for the first of six short races to be held this season.

In the statements released after the Australian GP in Melbourne and published in the last few hours by the German media Autosport, Verstappen confessed: “I’m not having fun”. And it went further: “Even if you change the format, I don’t think it’s in Formula 1’s DNA to do this type of sprint race“.

AND, although he is the first winner of Sprint races with three victories (Silverstone in 2021 and Imola and Austria in 2022), he underlined: “Because we’re going towards seasons where there are 24, 25 races at some point – because that’s where we’re going – and if we then start adding even more stuff, still not worth it to me“.

In statements to Sport TV de Portugal, meanwhile, Verstappen was blunt: “Of course, I hope there won’t be too many changes; otherwise I won’t, I won’t stay here long“.

Mad Max, who has been racing in the most important category in the world since he was 17, is the leader of the season with 69 points and 15 ahead of his Mexican teammate Sergio Czech Pérez, after winning two of the three races held (Bahrain and Australia).

The fourth date will be held in the street of Baku, Azerbaijan where the action will start on April 28, will continue on Saturday 29 with the first Sprint Race of 2023 and will be defined on Sunday 30.

A meteoric rise in F1

Max Verstappen didn’t enter Formula 1 because he was the son of Jos Verstappen. In his meteoric rise, after the 2013 karting world title and only one season in European F3 in 2014the enthusiasm shown by Dieter Mateschitz, major shareholder of the energy drink brand Red Bull, and the praise of Helmut Marko, director of the Young Driver Development Program where he has been since 2013, who I consider it “A pilot of those who appear once every ten years”.

Thus, at the age of 16, in August 2014, Verstappen was confirmed to replace Eric Vergne at Toro Rosso the following season and One day before his 17th birthday, he received the super license to race in Formula 1 as a gift.. A few days later he got into a single-seater for the first time for the first practice sessions of the Japanese Grand Prix. “My father already told me that Suzuka is a very difficult circuit and that’s why I don’t go there with the idea of ​​breaking records but with the intention of trying new sensations”contact then.

On March 15, 2015, with 17 years, 5 months and 15 days, The Dutchman broke the finish line held by Spaniard Jaime Alguersuari since 2009 at the age of 19 years, 4 months and 3 days to become the youngest F1 rookie. At the next Grand Prix, in Malaysia, He managed to be the youngest to score, finishing seventh at 17 years, 5 months and 27 days.

Far from the performance of a rookies on average, Verstappen closed his first season with 49 points and was twice on the verge of the podium (4th in Hungary and in the United States). The following year, after four races, Red Bull promoted him to the first team. -relegating the Russian Daniil Kvyat to Toro Rosso- and responded with his first win and a new all-time record.

On 15 May 2016, in a Spanish GP marked by the collision between Hamilton and Nico Rosberg which left the two Mercedes out of the race, the Dutchman registered his name as youngest driver to win an F1 race, aged 18 years, 7 months and 15 days, just 24 races since debut.

“Do you realize I ran against your father?”joked Kimi Raikkonen, who was escorting him in his Ferrari at the time. The podium was completed by Sebastian Vettel, who had won the 2008 Italian Grand Prix aged 21 years, 2 months and 11 days, and at the time had overtaken Spain’s Fernando Alonso, winner of the 2003 Hungarian Grand Prix with 22 years and 11 days. 26 days.

“It’s incredible. I can’t believe it, it was a super race. I have to thank the team for giving me such a good car and my father, who helped me achieve this goal from an early age.”, said that young Verstappen, who was then breaking with the hegemony that Mercedes had imposed with Rosberg, winner of the first four races of the season and the last three of the previous one. The question now was whether he could have done it with Hamilton too.

Without a doubt it was the season he came closest to achieving it. In 2017, many speculated that he would also be the youngest champion in history. but, without Rosberg, the fight for Hamilton was given by Vettel with Ferrari, just like in 2018, when the Englishman managed to take the lead much earlier to equal Fangio in conquering his fifth title.

The first championship came to the 24 years, two months and 12 days, in that remembered Abu Dhabi 2021 GP. Verstappen only had an advantage on Saturday, when he took pole. But in the race Hamilton got off to a better start and led the race without problems until an unusual crash by Nicholas Latifi allowed the safety car to enter and that last lap in which the Dutchman defined the title in favor of him –the first for a Dutch driver– and prevented the Englishman from taking an unprecedented eighth title.

Last year the story was more fruitful and overwhelming. In Japan, the land where he made his debut eight years and six days ago, testing Toro Rosso in practice 1 that the Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne would leave him at the end of the season, the 25-year-old, despite a few moments of confusion, made sure his second title four dates from the endas happened to the Germans Michael Schumacher (in 2001 and 2004) and Sebastian Vettel (2011), although he could have reached him much earlier.